Push Me Away, Let Me Go
by Untraveled
Summary: Part 1- Shmi's Legacy (3-Shot) Part 2-Push Me Away, Let Me Go It has been a year since Anakin had left the Jedi Order and both he had Padme are still adjusting as newly-weds on Padme's Home world of Naboo. In the Outer rim Jedi Generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Pong Krell and his padawan Ahsoka Tano pursue a separatist fleet ravaging Republic worlds and vanishing without a trace.
1. Chapter 1

Never Stop Loving

The flight from Naboo was a blur of fear, anxiety, and nightmares that left Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker's head spinning and his chest churning, and not even the presence of Padme in the seat beside him had eased his suffering. He was barely aware of what he had been doing, his body on autopilot as the rest of him spazzed out and rebelled against itself.

It all started with those kriffing nightmares.

Anakin had confided in his master Obi-Wan about his dreams, the images of his mother dying horrifically and constantly. Obi-Wan hadn't understood.

"Jedi don't have attachments." He had said. "You are just having dreams because of the fear from losing your attachment to Shmi."

Anakin had seen red then. He had to walk away.

For once the young Padawan had wanted Obi-Wan to be right though, about them only being dreams though, even if his tacked on lesson was unnecessary and had enraged Anakin.

To Obi-Wan she was just Shmi, slave woman from Tatooine, but to Anakin she is Mom, his first love, and greatest beacon of light in his life. Shmi is the example Anakin strives to emulate, he wants with all his heart to make her proud and free her and the slaves.

Instead, he failed to protect her. Instead he had been a galaxy away playing Jedi while she had suffered. He is a terrible son.

He had landed his procured starship in the outskirts of his hometown and pressed the inhabitants for information, he even faced his old owner and after barely restraining to urge to bisect the floating Toydarian grub.

He discovered that Shmi had been freed by a moisture farmer and rushed to the Lars homestead and there he met his step-father, Cliegg Lars. His step-father was an older man and had bought and freed Shmi Skywalker and married her a few years prior. When she had been kidnapped Cliegg had tried to rescue her but ultimately failed. he had lost a leg for his attempt leaving him confined to a hover-chair with a broken body and broken heart.

The confused man had barely breathed a greeting when Anakin flew into his questions, when the old man had finally managed to gather himself when he realized he is speaking with Shmi's beloved son and finally broke the news to his step-son.

Sand people, Sand people had Shmi. Sand people kidnapped his mother.

Anakin hadn't heard Padme's pleas to slow down and think this through. He had snatched a speeder had had vanished into the desert alone, leaving a distraught Padme at the Lars homestead staring helpless at his rapidly shrinking back.

Finding the Sand people's village normally would be next to impossible in the empty expanse of swirling sand. This was no normal situation however, nor was Anakin your normal hunter, he is a Jedi, a very pissed off and angry Jedi looking for his mother.

He found the village atop a cliff face overlooking the Mos Espa plains just south of the actual spaceport proper. Anakin felt a bit of irony to discover that these very same raiders are very likely the same ones that had taken potshots at him during his pod-races as a child.

He leapt from the still flying speeder and descended onto the hapless desert dwelling barbarians, his lightsaber ignited and dancing in a whirlwind of viridescent light and ruthless fury. The tusken raiders put up a meager resistance up at best, their cobbled together long rifles spitting laser fire fitfully from their rusted barrels. Anakin flicked the bolts away effortlessly, redirecting the lasers back into the mob of attackers until he was close enough to cut into the squawking semi-humans with ease.

The stench of sizzling flesh and screech of dying sand people fell on deaf senses, Anakin's entire being homed in the faint life inside a ramshackle tent at the back of the village, its light weakly pulsing and rapidly fading with every heartbeat.

His stride lengthened as fear gripped his heart. he barely registered a trio of spear wielding raiders charge him with their honking and squawking war cries. He simply stepped a bit to the left and split one creature down the middle with a jerk of his green 'saber. The other two tusken raiders lost their heads with his follow up strike, their weapons shorn down the middle as if they were flimsiplast and all the while Anakin never broke his stride.

The surviving sand people squealed and bleated in terror at witnessing their warriors cut down as if they were an afterthought, the wiser of their number fled from the light wielding monster of death, their young and belongings clutched in their claws as they scrambled from the demon's path.

Anakin ignored their cries of anger and fear and ducked into the filthy hide hovel with his heart in his throat. The sight that greeted him broke him.

She looked like a broken doll, abused, hurt, and discarded atop a pile of stolen rugs along with the rest of the pilfered loot on the hovel floor, her limbs askew and her beautiful face marred with a layer of bruises and cuts. Anakin barely saw this though; his deep blue eyes were on the rapidly growing pool of blood staining and spreading through the rest of the fabric his wonderful mother lay on.

Shmi stirred, a sting of pain from the sleeve of harsh sunlight from Anakin parting the hovel's curtain striking her closed eyes. A quiet breathy moan broke from her lips and her cold pale fingers trailed down the hole in her stomach and she lifted her trembling hand up towards the light, his name spilled softly from her blued lips like a prayer.

"Anakin…" Shmi whispered, delirious from blood loss and pain, but her eyes- eyes far wiser and deeper than his own- were blessedly clear and stronger than his ever were. "Oh Ani. My little boy…"

"M-Mom?" Anakin whimpered, his stony expression cracked, showing the terrified young man underneath the vengeful warrior.

His lightsaber fizzled out with a hiss and the padawan collapsed next to Shmi Skywalker, his legs weak and trembling. He took his mother's outstretched hand in both of his own and interlaced their fingers. Shmi's fingers were cold, far too cold.

Anakin's throat worked to swallow, to force the words his needed to say out. He was partially successful but all that did was break his already crumbling walls.

"I'm sorry." He choked out, his head bowed under the weight of his guilt and self-hatred until his forehead rested on his mother's chest, heedless of her blood soaking his skin and hair. "I'm sorry Mom, I'm so s-sorry!"

"This is all my fault." He choked, hot tears spilling freely from his watery blue eyes. "I should have stopped this. I promised to become a Jedi to save you and free all the slaves! I should have saved you! I-I…!"

"Ani." Shmi's hoarse whisper had a strength to it that belayed her otherwise fading body. Shmi's hoarse whisper had a power to it, one that belayed her otherwise fading body. Her strength drawn not from her failing flesh, but her heart and soul.

"You did save me." She said, her cold, weak fingers gently squeezing his hand. "you saved me the day you were born.""I love you." She said, her bloodied and weak fingers suddenly finding the strength to squeeze her broken son's trembling hand

Anakin hiccupped into his chest in reply, drawing a breathy laugh from Shmi. Her light pulsed weakly, fading more and more as she spoke, as if using the last vestiges of her soul's strength to reach her precious boy's breaking heart.

"You are my hero Ani. You always… always have been. You don't have to… be a Jedi for me to be proud of you…" Her breath came up wet and ragged, her voice fainter but not less resolute.

"Listen to me baby…" Shmi rasped, her hand trailing crimson trails down her son's cheek and turned his head until his sky-blue eyes met her clear chestnut and green gaze.

"No matter what happens… no matter how much it hurts…" Shmi wiped a tear from Anakin's cheek. "Promise me-"

"Never stop loving."

It was well into the evening when a lone speeder crested the dunes over the Lars Homestead, only one of Tatooine's twin suns was still peaking over the sandy horizon, painting the sky in hazy hues of pink and orange.

The Lars family had retreated to their dinner table, Cliegg Lars urged Padme to eat with them to keep up her strength for his step-son's return. Padme declined, preferring to stand vigil under the front door awning, just the thought of attempting to choke down a meal made her nauseous.

She was the first to see the dust cloud kicked up in the speeder's wake, her heart leaping into her throat. Her usually refined and collected demeanor was thrown out the window in her frantic haste to drag Anakin's step-family from their home.

She pulled Cliegg's hover chair out of the doorway just as Anakin pulled the speeder to a stop, upon seeing him by himself astride the vehicle and the bloodstained cloth wrapped body cradled lovingly in his arms Padme's hands covered her mouth in horror. Cliegg sat beside her, his face stricken and his shoulders shaking in silent tears as his step-son dismounted the speeder and stumbled over with his Shmi's body clutched to his chest.

Anakin stood before Padme and his Step-father; his eyes red expression shattered. He worked his mouth and throat to say something, anything, but nothing came out except for a choked sob.

Owen Lars Anakin's step-brother stepped forward to try to take Shmi's body but Anakin refused to relinquish his hold. Padme gently pushed aside the older moisture farmer and instead of trying to take his mother's body she brushed a hand across the petite bloody handprint on Anakin's face. Her gentle touch ghosting over where his mother last held him broke whatever control Anakin had left and he collapsed against her sobbing, his weight dragging them down to their knees in the sand with Shmi's body cradled between them.

Anakin felt a shaking weight settle on one shoulder and he looked up to see Cliegg quietly crying, his hand on his step-son's shoulder as he mourned Shmi's loss. A few seconds later two more hands joined Cliegg's Owen and his wife circled around their Jedi step-brother, their sorrow thrummed in the force like rain against a window. Anakin let go of his shields, his grief rolling over them all in the force. If his family's sadness felt like a rainstorm, his was a tsunami. His power filled to air and rushed through his force bonds, slamming into Obi-wan Kenobi's bond with the full force of a surging flood overwhelming a levy even from half a galaxy away and nearly knocking the Jedi Master off his feet.

"I wanted…" Anakin choked out. "I wanted to kill them." He confessed. "I needed to kill those Raiders. B-but…" He struggled to suck in a shuddering breath. "I didn't."

Anakin clutched at his mother's body as a new wave of grief overtook him.

"She said I was her hero." He sobbed. "And… and no matter what I don't want to let her down."

A/N: Greetings!

Untraveled here. This is most likely the first time we have met so it is a pleasure to meet y'all!

Never Stop Loving is a small piece that I had been wanting to write for a short while and I had wanted to give homage to my own wonderful mother.

In my humble opinion Shmi is one of the unsung heroines of the Star Wars universe. In the few short scenes she has in the movies she is a believably human character with a heart of steely gold. Sure she couldn't force push a Sith lord through a Transparisteel window or turn a battalion of battle droids into metal matte but she never once stopped smiling, even in her last moments.

Anakin was weaker in heart than his mother, and in the prequels his rage soured his soul and he forgot his mother's lesson; Love is the most powerful force in the Universe.

In this AU Shmi reminded her son of this, and instead of slaughtering the monsters that ultimately killed his mother Anakin left them alive. A small but critical detail that changes everything in Anakin's fall to the dark side.

This time he has taken Shmi's words to heart and perhaps Anakin will remember to Never Stop Loving.

Who knows how this will change the galaxy?

-Untraveled


	2. Chapter 2

Trust me- Shmi's Legacy

Obi-wan is a worrier by nature, even before he had been apprenticed to his master Qui-Gon he had been noted by his peers as someone prone to stressing over things perhaps a touch too much.

He had always claimed it was him being responsible, his padawan Anakin called him full of poodoo.

Obi-wan would perhaps had found it mildly amusing if Anakin himself weren't the source of his worries.

A reckless rescue from a geonosian battle arena, a lightsaber-amputated hand, and over 184 slain Jedi later found Anakin Skywalker withdrawn and unusually distant from his master. Sure Obi-wan and Anakin don't always get along and very rarely agree on anything but it concerned Kenobi greatly to see the boisterous padawan he had raised over the past 10 years so quiet and… introspective.

Anakin had lost his lightsaber in the ill-fated battle with Count Dooku not two days ago, his weapon destroyed beyond repair or salvage, much like his severed hand. The entire time he had his prosthetic fitted Obi-Wan had sat right next to him, a comforting hand on the young man's shoulder. He could feel Anakin's every jerk and gasp of pain both through his hand and their shared force-bond as the medical droid pricked at the cauterized stump with its array of needles to align and attach his muscles and nerves to his new metal hand.

The agony that rippled and leaked through his mental defenses staggered the Jedi Master though. Obi-wan was shocked at the stoic and unflinching manner Anakin dealt with the pain. The Jedi master had no illusions about why Anakin could ignore the debilitating stabbing throbs that shot up his severed limb. He had been a slave for his entire childhood and from what tiny snippets Obi-Wan managed to drag out of his padawan Anakin's life had been anything but easy and pain free.

Still, the ghost pains Obi-Wan could feel leaking through Anakin's defenses was enough to make him double over and gasp. It was eye opening for Obi-Wan to know that he was only feeling a portion of the agony that was wreaking havoc on his young padawan.

Anakin's shields were never the most refined but they were generally solid and stalwart, they had to be, to other force-sensitives Anakin was _a lot. _Even when shielded his presence in the force could distract and even overwhelm the senses if those around him were untrained and unprepared. Anakin himself had plenty more to learn about his use of the force. He possessed immense power but he is still unrefined, his current mastery barely scratches the surface of his potential abilities.

When the medical droid was done with his work it wandered off without a sound, leaving Obi-Wan alone with his quiet and subdued Padawan running his flesh hand up and down his new metal forearm. As the lances of pain shooting through their force-bond faded Obi-Wan felt a surge of protectiveness kick him in the chest at the downcast young Jedi.

_Perhaps losing his hand is hitting him harder than I expected? _

It was worth asking at any rate. With the declaration of war with Count Dooku and the Separatists Obi-Wan needed Anakin to get over it and move on. It was for the best and his own good, right?

"Master," Anakin spoke for the first time since Geonosis. It actually took Obi-Wan a couple of seconds the realize that it hadn't been his imagination.

The Jedi Master rose his eyebrows gently, showing his padawan he was listening, curious as to what his mute apprentice had broken his silence to discuss. What the young man said next sent a wave of concern ripple through his chest.

"I would like an audience with the Jedi Council." Anakin said. It hadn't been a request, not really. The way he spoke carried a weight of finality Oni-Wan had heard from his own master, Qui-Gon Jinn so long ago.

Obi-Wan stayed quiet for a few moments deliberating with himself over Anakin's demand. Throwing a bit of caution to the wind he decided to bite slug-bolt and ask.

"What is this about Anakin?"

The young man turned his piercing blue gaze away and his face hardened into the same pensive mask he had been wearing since the battle.

"You will find out at the audience with the council." He replied shortly. Obi-Wan frowned.

"The Jedi Council isn't at your beck and call young padawan. They don't have time to entertain whatever trivial emotional toil you are wrestling with, especially with this blasted civil war."

Obi-Wan had prepared himself for his padawan's fiery and biting retort, but what he hadn't been prepared for the resigned and bemused smirk creep sadly across the young man's face.

"Okay."

Obi-Wan stayed silent for a stretch just staring at his padawan and blinking dumbly waiting for the other shoe to drop but Anakin stayed quiet. Evidently he had already said his piece leaving the famous 'Negotiator' Master Kenobi flailing out in the wind in an odd state of shock.

"That's it?" He asked before he could stop himself as his mouth opened and closed a couple of times, a bit stunned. Anakin looked over and took in his master's startled blank expression and actually broke out in a genuine smile and a quiet snigger.

"you are well Master?" Anakin chuckled. "Were you expecting I say something else?"

"Yes!" Obi-Wan exclaimed, waving one hand in the air in exasperation. "I was actually expecting you to blister and fight in the vain hopes I would give in."

"All I got from that is that you just like to argue." His padawan quipped instantly.

"Anakin…" Obi-Wan drew out his shit-eating grinning apprentice's name in a warning tone but by the end it just turned into a sigh in defeat.

"Fine, I will talk with the council about giving you a short audience with us in a few days."

Again Obi-Wan was shocked when instead of a surly quip or barbed comment Anakin's face brightened into an exhausted but honest smile instead.

"Thank you Master, that will give me enough time to get everything in order."

Obi-Wan didn't like how Anakin phrased that but decided to let it go. He had no idea what was going to happen in a few days but whatever it was he just hoped Anakin would leave the temple standing afterward.

_Chosen one indeed… _Ob-Wan snorted with a small fond shake of his head. _Master Jinn, this boy you saved will the death of me._

Out in the aethereal depths of the force Obi-Wan sensed a familiar and thoroughly amused smile back at him in response.

Two days past and Anakin had become something of a phantom enigma that drifted in and out of the Jedi Temple. Obi-Wan had tried to keep his strangely acting apprentice within his line of sight but the very second he would look away the boy would simply vanish! It was practically maddening! His apprentice would return to their shared quarters he would smell of the Coruscant lower levels at odd times in the day and night and he absolutely refused to explain where he had been.

"You'll understand when I explain at the audience with the council Master." Anakin had insisted the night before the audience. His expression grew a touch forlorn when he added almost sadly, "You just may not agree with it much…"

Obi-Wan had given up pressing for information and instead scrutinized his sneaky Padawan's slightly grimy garbs. The young man had traded his tan and brown Jedi robes for a more regal set of silver and black dress clothes reminiscent of a Naboo or Aldeeran noble or senator. Obi-Wan hadn't even known Anakin had clothes like this.

Obi-Wan certainly didn't have anything so extravagant in his wardrobe, he couldn't afford it and he knew for a fact Anakin couldn't, not on the shallow allowance the Jedi allocate for their Padawans. Besides, Anakin spent all of his credits on his motley collection of droids and speeders he thinks Obi-Wan doesn't know about. Anakin has quite the reputation as a street racer, even among Coruscant's lower crust of vagrants and adrenaline-junkies.

Not to mention the CorSec Police. Anakin is actually the official record holder for the longest rap-sheet for traffic violations of any Jedi _ever. _Even after 10 years of his shenanigans Obi-Wan wasn't sure whether to be mortified or impressed.

After bidding his apprentice goodnight Obi-Wan went to bed but sleep escaped him as easily as patience eludes his Padawan. His mind roiled with anxiety for the coming meeting in the morning. He just wanted to get it over with so he and Anakin can focus on the war with the Separatists!

It seems this time _HE _is the one short of patience tonight.

A soft clatter of glass being gently set on a kitchen countertop drifted through his sealed bedroom door. Obi-Wan glanced at the chrono on the wall.

_02:14 in the morning. _Obi-Wan huffed as more quiet little sounds of his Padawan's nighttime scavenging trickled from their shared kitchen. _Anakin must be just as nervous as I am. _A wane smile pulled at the edges of the Jedi Master's lips. _Usually I'm the one good at masking my anxiety. _

_Anakin is growing up. _

Obi-Wan blinked, surprised at the thought as if someone else had declared it instead of him, inside his own head no less. A well of nostalgia welled up in the tired Jedi so sudden and strong he barely managed to throw his mental shields up in their shared Force-bond.

After that embarrassing close call Obi-Wan delved back into his memories of his times with his Apprentice. They had accomplished much since Qui-Gon made him take in the distraught 9-year-old Skywalker. He became a master at age 24 with a Padawan half the age of any Master in recent memory with exactly none of the training of any other youngling his age. Those first years for the slave boy from Tatooine had been brutal and emotional for the both of them with short moments of triumph and growth intermittent between long strings of struggle, hardship and failure. Obi-Wan was again in wonder that they hadn't killed each other by now.

The clatter and shuffle outside in the kitchen fell silent drawing Obi-Wan from his reminiscing and piqued his interest. Coming to a decision he slid from his uncomfortable bed, threw on his under robes, and quietly eased open his chamber door into the kitchen.

The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the never sleeping city were drawn open throwing the sparse living room and kitchen in Coruscant's stifling red ambient glow. A tall and broad shouldered shadow leaned up against the wall brooding as he stared out over the trails of relentless traffic lanes crisscrossing the night sky, his mechanical hand reflected a pale red light as he absentmindedly fiddled with his padawan braid.

Anakin dropped his braid and ran his golden metal fingers through his short blonde-brown hair as if raking his troublesome thoughts off of his mind.

"Good evening Master." Anakin greeted; his deep blue eyes almost glowing as he looked at him from the reflection of the window.

"Good morning Anakin." He replied without skipping a beat.

"It's morning already?" Anakin said with a small amount of genuine surprise, their familiar exchange silently released the odd tension that had subtly stretched their bond tight as piano wire.

The Jedi Master quirked a tiny smile and glided over to his love seat beside the couch and settled in with a sigh, the thick brown leather that wrapped both pieces of furniture was worn and comfortably broken in, giving way beneath his weight without a sound. He glanced down at the table and noted the two steaming cups of tea sat on the low table in front of him, the nostalgic warmth that cradled in his chest spread.

_He felt I couldn't sleep either. _

Obi-Wan leaned forward and scooped up his waiting draft of tea and took a slow languished sip, savoring the earthy and slightly spicy concoction. He knew Anakin had a distinct dislike for the traditional brew, in fact he almost hated it as much as Obi-Wan liked it, often quoting his distaste with teasing him with his love for the "hot leaf juice". Despite that Anakin had taken the time to learn his favorite blend- Stewjon Flare-leaf from his home world- and just how he liked it brewed.

He suspected his clever padawan learned it mostly just to butter him up when he did something wrong or had a particularly difficult favor to ask. Suddenly Obi-Wan wondered would this time would be any different.

As he enjoyed his tea Anakin left the window and plopped down in the couch, his tan under robes bellowing out from his long limbs and bare feet. With a gentle flick of the force Anakin scooped his own waiting cup of tea into the air and into his hands. He had pulled a touch too hard and the ceramic cup clanked loudly against his new metal palm making him flinch back in surprise like a startled puppy.

Perhaps in a few months Obi-Wan would poke a little fun at his padawan's amusing expression but for right now all he felt was a hook of guilt yank hard on his heart. If only he had been a better Master or even just a better Jedi than Anakin wouldn't have lost his hand.

Why is it that his Padawan, even as foolish and reckless as he is, had to pay for his Master's mistakes?

Obi-Wan took a long slow breath, inhaling the tea his Apprentice made for him. It pulled him from his quickly spiraling thoughts, he is tired both physically and mentally. His exhaustion is affecting his emotions, he knew this, so he sank into the force in a shallow meditation, drawing out his guilt and sorrow and let it bleed out into nothingness, carried away by the force.

"Concerned about the audience with the Jedi Council Master?" Anakin asked, sipping his own tea with a small grimace. He still didn't like its taste but through prior experience he recognized its calming effects.

Obi-Wan eyed the young man for a moment and set his cup in his lap.

"I should be asking you the same thing." He replied. "Are you sure you won't speak to me first? If it's about your knighthood I believe Master Mundi is proposing to skip the trials altogether in light of this war with the Separatists."

Anakin swallowed his drink and rested back against the couch with a weary sigh, his pensive expression half shrouded in shadow and crimson city light.

"It's not about knighthood Master." He admitted, his prosthetic fingers trailing over his cup's surface making a tiny ringing sound. "It's about my future."

Obi-Wan blinked, confused. "Is not that the same thing?"

"…" Anakin remained silent and looked towards the window, his metal fingers still making that soft ringing sound against the teacup. Suddenly the soft ringing stopped and Anakin broke the silence, his deepening voice thick with a meaning Obi-Wan couldn't identify.

"Can you trust me Master? Support me during the audience tomorrow?" He said, still not meeting his Master's eye.

Obi-Wan went quiet himself for a moment, taking in his Apprentice's expression as he turned over Anakin's plea in his mind.

"I… I don't like not knowing what I'm supposed to be throwing my support behind Anakin." Obi-Wan said carefully. Anakin shook his head in frustration, his force aura flared for second in irritation reminding Obi-Wan that Anakin was just as tired as he was. Still Obi-Wan was once again thrown off-kilter from what his Apprentice said next.

"I'm not asking you to support some crazy idea or plan of mine Master." He bit out, turning his fiery blue gaze to Obi-Wan for the first time that night. He planted his metal hand over his heart.

"I'm asking you to trust me!"

Obi-Wan inhaled sharply, trying to decipher exactly what Anakin was asking of him. Any empty words of Jedi wisdom or common sense would simply make Anakin push him away, no matter how true they are. Anakin never led with his mind, but rather his heart, something the Jedi Order frowned upon.

It dawned on Obi-Wan that perhaps this wasn't a teaching moment, but rather a crossroads. Whatever he said next would determine their relationship for possibly the rest of their lives.

"Okay I trust you Anakin." Obi-Wan said, his voice barely above a whisper. "You have my support." He hesitated for a moment and opened his force-bond with his Apprentice, urging the young man to feel his sincerity. "Both in the Audience and outside of it."

Obi-Wan felt Anakin's intense presence open up to their bond and weigh his honesty in those words, then he withdrew behind his defenses without a word, his eyes still on his Master's face, mulling over his thoughts. Then, he tentatively freed himself to their fore-bond and spoke, his voice melodic with memory.

"Remember that time we went to Felucia when I was fifteen for that meditation retreat?"

A smile stretched unbidden but appreciated across Obi-Wan's tired face as he opened his bond with his Apprentice and shared in the nostalgic memory. It felt like he had just passed a test of some kind, and seeing Anakin opening up further, trusting him made the older man's smile brighten.

"I distinctly remember you crashing our speeder into a rock." Obi-Wan deadpanned around his broad grin.

"-A stroke of bad luck." Anakin huffed.

"-And that bounty hunter's skiff in that coral tree."

"-Pure coincidence." Anakin refuted weakly, his eyes rolling. "The tree just was at the wrong place at the wrong time."

"-Oh, and our own ship when we tried to get off world." Obi-Wan grinned.

Anakin threw a hand up in the air helplessly. "How was I supposed to know they had an EMP bomb?" He pointed at his Master and declared, "That doesn't count!"

Obi-Wan broke into peals of laughter that Anakin soon joined, their force-bond flaring with familiar warmth and light.

Oni-Wan and Anakin stayed in the living room bantering between themselves for the rest of the early morning as they reminisced on their past adventures. Obi-Wan's worries were pushed back by the light of shared memories in years gone by.

Obi-Wan knew that no matter what happened during the Audience with the Jedi Council he would treasure these early morning hours spent just talking with his Padawan for the rest of his life.

A/N: Surprise! Shmi's Legacy no longer a one-shot!

I originally planned to write this little portion as a part of a separate AU but I felt it fit too perfectly with the events of Never Stop Loving and I couldn't help myself.

I loved writing from Obi-Wan's perspective, it is a vastly difference experience and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Obi-Wan is the model Jedi Master and even though he is as human as Anakin and holds a strong connection with his Padawan Obi-Wan is not as emotionally as the young Skywalker. He wants to do good in the galaxy and firmly believes in the Jedi way, though his faith in Anakin rivals even that devotion to the Jedi Order.

Obi-Wan is a very different person that Anakin, it shows in how he thinks and what he says and does. He doesn't think like a normal human, but a Jedi, something Anakin struggles or outright refuses to do. Food for thought before you condemn the poor guy.

I wonder what Anakin has planned for the Audience with the Jedi Council that he won't even share it with Obi-Wan?

Guess you'll have to wait and see! Mwahahaha!

-Untraveled


	3. She is Worth my World- Shmi's Legacy

She is Worth my World- Shmi's Legacy

Not getting any sleep the night before perhaps was not the best way to make a good impression for the Jedi Council. Even if every part of your dress is spit-shined and your outward appearance is immaculate your weariness is obvious in your force presence. Obi-Wan cradled his head in a hand for a moment staving off a small headache. It was just a small twinge behind his right temple but it was insistent, most like his Padawan.

The young Jedi Master straightened himself up in his council seat and swept the room with a curious eye. Only five Jedi Masters were actually present for the audience with Anakin Skywalker, the others were too embroiled in their campaigns against the Separatists. It had only been a week yet already the Jedi Order has been scattered to the stars like dust in the wind. The Temple had been feeling empty as of late, even during the middle of the day.

Master Yoda sat in his customary seat, his normally open expression closed off and sober. The ancient Jedi Master must still be feeling the loss of so many of their number on Geonosis. 184 Jedi dead in a single day and less than 30 walked away and not a single one of them whole. Masters, Knights, and Padawans all gone and one with the force.

Master Windu sat beside the wrinkled green Jedi, his signature scowl etched on his face and a thumb unconsciously trancing across his lightsaber hilt. The Jedi Battle master may be a hardened warrior but the events of the battle of Geonosis seemed to have taken its toll. His mood looked even worse than usual, something that may make Anakin's time more difficult. Mace Windu doesn't like Anakin, he had been the chief voice against allowing the "Chosen One" to train as a Jedi despite being far too old by Jedi standards to start training.

Master Mundi seemed unconcerned with the early morning summons. He looked to be meditating, his eyes were closed and his breathing- actually no, now that he looked closer the Cerean was simply asleep. No doubt worn out by his worried wives the night before.

It was still odd to Obi-Wan that a Jedi had been allowed to marry. He understood why though, there are a few other species that had a mandated mating policy that ensured the survival of a race but to have children and remain detached enough to still be Jedi…

A pair of saucy blue eyes gracing above a witty grin and a glittering Mandalorian ball gown swept through Obi-Wan's thoughts, taking center stage for the first time in a while.

He shook those thoughts of _her _from his mind. He had pushed her away and she had done the same. No matter how they felt about each other it just wasn't possible they lived in two very different worlds. It was impossible for a Jedi to love a politician. Right?

The other two Jedi Masters present were Eeth Koth, a male Zabrack, the same species as Darth Maul only with yellow skin, and Shaak Ti, a Togruta Female with ornate blue and white striped montral (Horns) and leeku (head-tails) and deep orange-red skin. She was the only one present by hologram, being that she was placed in charge of training the new republic clone troopers being created on Kamino.

Obi-Wan swept his robe free of any non-existent dust and fidgeted in his chair. He nearly leapt out of his skin when Master Yoda's wizened chirping voice piped up.

"Master Kenobi, nervous are we?" The small green Jedi asked. His tone was light as if slightly amused and knowing, as if he could read the human Jedi's mind. Obi-Wan wouldn't be surprised if that was actually the case.

"Anxious is perhaps a more accurate word Master." He replied.

Master Windu rose a skeptical eyebrow. "Don't you know why your Padawan has demanded this audience, Kenobi?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm almost as in the dark as you are. Anakin refused to speak unless it was in front of the council."

"We are not at the beck and call of your darling apprentice Kenobi!" Mace Windu lectured, his nostrils flaring. Obi-Wan suppressed a sigh as the Jedi Battle master added, "Perhaps your attachment to the boy has clouded your judgement-"

For better or worse before Master Windu could continue to tear into him Anakin chose that moment to enter into the council chamber, interrupting the lecture and drawing Windu's wrathful scowl.

Obi-Wan glanced at the chrono above the far wall and noticed for perhaps the first time Anakin was actually on time.

His Padawan was clad in his usual tan and brown Jedi robes, the folds were pressed and straight and his hair freshly cut short with his padawan braid laid over his left shoulder. The only thing out of place was his golden Mechno-hand and the two brunt pieces of his lightsaber held in the metal fingers. Under the silent gazes of the Jedi Masters Anakin strode with purpose to the center of the chamber and dipped into a respectful bow.

It was seriously weirding Obi-Wan out how Jedi-like and so unlike himself Anakin was acting.

_Who is this Jedi and what have you done with my Padawan? _

"Masters, Thank you for allowing me this audience." Anakin said, his dead still bowed. A small smile fought to spread across Obi-Wan's face.

_Never mind, I like this one. _

Master Windu opened his mouth to reply, no doubt with a barbed tongue but thankfully Master Yoda beat him to the punch.

"Raise your head you may Padawan Skywalker." Yoda bid with a small tap of his cane against his knee. Once Anakin rose his head to look the Grand Master in the eye Yoda arched his eyebrows in an openly discerning expression. "Curious to the reason you have asked to see us, I am."

Obi-Wan caught the subtle glance Anakin threw his way and the near imperceptible tightening of his Mechno-hand's grip of his destroyed lightsaber. Though his face betrayed nothing but calm and confidence Obi-Wan felt a shaking ripple through their Force-bond like a rattling breath through petrified lungs.

On the inside Anakin was so nervous it eclipsed Obi-Wan's own. He now is just realizing just how important last night's conversation was to Anakin. His Padawan is right now leaning heavily against Obi-Wan's promise of support.

_Can you trust me Master? _

Obi-Wan sent out a pulse of reassurance across their Force-Bond and Anakin's death grip on his shorn lightsaber eased, the servos in his fingers loosening with a tinny groan of relief.

Anakin took a deep breath to center himself and Obi-Wan saw a familiar reckless light shining in his deep blue eyes.

"I'm getting Married."

Obi-Wan blinked, as did the other Jedi Masters, even Yoda looked thrown by Anakin's declaration.

_I suppose not even Yoda could have sensed that plot twist. _

Unfortunately Master Windu was the first to recover his composure.

"What did you just say Padawan?" Windu asked, is voice dipping into a growling baritone.

A wave of vindicated amusement rolled from Anakin and a small challenging grin spread across his face.

"I said I'm getting married Master Windu." Anakin repeated simply with a shrug, all sense of is previously flawless decorum promptly thrown out the window. Anakin could never back down from a challenge and Mace Windu happened to provide that.

"Padawan Skywalker," Master Windu's growl darkened as did his scowl. "since the moment we have allowed you to step into our temple we have allowed you countless exceptions."

Though Obi-Wan silently agreed with Master Windu so far the way the Battle master said these things irked him. Mace Windu seemed to be almost _blaming _Anakin for the circumstances of his admittance to the Jedi Order.

Though he knew it not to be true Obi-Wan felt Master Windu was inadvertently attacking his fallen Master Qui-Gon Jinn. He didn't like that one bit. He had to fight to center himself as Master Windu began to drag out fault after fault back into the light.

"We have allowed you to train as a Jedi despite you being far too old and the darkness that resides in your heart. We have allowed you to remain in the order despite your REPEATED transgressions and violations of the Jedi Code as well as the law." Mace Windu lifted a hand and extended a finger for each violation.

"Illegal modification of Speeder craft, underaged driving, street racing, betting on said street racing-"

"-In my defense I was left unsupervised-"

"SILENCE PADAWAN!" Master Windu barked. "You will not interrupt me again." He added in a dangerous rumble.

Obi-Wan held his breath but Anakin miraculously bit back a scathing remark of his own and allowed Master Windu to say his piece.

"We have allowed you exceptions time and time again, what makes you think we will allow you this blatant violation of the Jedi Code because of your flimsy corrupting _attachment_?"

Thunderous rage stormed over Anakin's expression and white hot righteous fury surged from him through the force. Obi-Wan flinched as if he had been burned, their force-bond exposing him to the unfiltered heat of his Padawan's outrage.

"Perhaps I hadn't made myself clear." In stark contrast to the inferno of anger roiling inside him Anakin's voice was cold and hard as tempered durasteel. The young man seemed to have skipped from blistered shouting straight to frigid and calm fury.

Anakin advanced a step toward the glowering Jedi Battle Master and thrust a finger in his direction causing the already twitchy Jedi Master to grasp his lightsaber on reflex. For one horrifying second Obi-Wan thought Master Windu was about to jump to his feet and strike his Apprentice down where he stood, somehow though Master Windu stayed his hand though his face hardened to stone as Anakin continued to speak, his voice powerful and his tone final.

"The most beautiful creature in the galaxy is outside waiting on me. No matter what happens in this chamber, no matter what you say, when I walk out of that door she and I are going to get married." Anakin's blue eyes sharpened as his own voice deepened into a growl. "I don't need nor want your approval on this matter. I'm not asking for permission. I stated a fact."

Obi-Wan looked to the rest of the council, noting the other Jedi Masters had stayed quiet as they watched the exchange, their reactions to his Padawan's statement varied. Yoda's eyes narrowed to a pensive squint as he absorbed Anakin's speech and the vibrations shaking through the force. Master Mundi held an understanding though pitying expression, as if he could sympathize with what Anakin felt but believed his attachment to his beloved was his downfall. Eeth Koth looked to be scrutinizing Anakin like he was observing him for the first time and trying to dissect his words like some puzzle.

Shaak Ti's holographic face on the other hand showed nothing but bewilderment. She had no idea what was going on and she felt way out of her depth since Anakin had started the audience. The poor woman. Though truth be told Obi-Wan was very much in the same boat with her clutching to the mast just trying to keep afloat through this stormy confrontation.

"You know Padawan Skywalker," Mace Windu said, his teeth bared in a restrained snarl. "Before you opened your mouth I was considering knighting you."

Obi-Wan was surprised by Master Windu's words and watched his Padawan closely for his reaction. It had been Anakin's dream to become a Jedi knight since Qui-Gon had freed the boy. He had expected some kind of surprise or conflict from Anakin didn't react at all, but both his hard expression and through their shared force-bond.

"To think of all we have given you Padawan." Master Windu continued, settling back in his chair and folding his arms. "When you were brought to us you had nothing. We have given you a home, food, training, education."

Mace Windu paused as if considering his words. "We gave you a life. Yet, this is how you repay us?"

Anakin's head dipped slightly and his shoulders shook. At first Obi-Wan felt distraught. It looked as if his apprentice was fighting to keep tears of shame from his face, but then Anakin threw his head back.

Anakin burst out in laughter.

"You gave me a life, yes." He chortled, now instead of a scowl Master Windu's frown was one of confusion. Suddenly Anakin's smile hardened into a disguised frown.

"To think you would use the same words my owner Watto said to me and my mother when I was a child." He sneered at a startled Windu. This got a reaction out of Master Yoda and a blink of surprise from Master Koth.

"You do not own me Master Windu." Anakin continued. He glanced at Obi-Wan to gauge his expression. Whatever he saw in his teacher's face must have satisfied him because when he turned his eyes back to the dumbstruck Jedi Battle Master his sneer lost some of its edge and Obi-Wan felt his anger relax.

"1,893,742." Anakin crossed his arms to mirror Mace Windu and quirked an eyebrow. "not counting official travel expenses that is how much I have cost the Jedi Order since I joined you ten years ago."

Obi-Wan once again found himself thrown off kilter. He had no idea that Anakin had been keeping track of something like that. Though now that he thought about it his Padawan had always asked the strangest questions about everything they used and did early on in his training as a Jedi. Obi-Wan had assumed Anakin had just been curious but was he saying he had actually been keeping track of every credit he used down to the cent?

"I was born into slavery." Anakin explained. "My life had always had a price tag on it. I was freed by Master Jinn in a wager valued in what would amount to a pallet of spare ship parts. I would be foolish when I was just freed to allow myself to be bought or indebted to another." Anakin narrowed his eyes at Mace Windu. "Just like you had just attempted to use against me Master Windu."

"I street raced for money. I bet on myself and saved every credit I could hide away. Still though, it wasn't enough so yesterday I sold the last of my speeders and droid projects."

Anakin spread his arms out in a proud gesture and grinned hollowly. "Just this morning as of twenty minutes ago I paid off every credit to my expenses to the Jedi Temple. I am once again a free man."

Anakin dropped his arms and his grin faded. "And as a free man I can choose whatever I want to do with my life, so-"

He flicked his Mechno hand and the two shorn pieces of his destroyed lightsaber clattered to the center of the chamber floor.

"I quit."

As Anakin descended the 750 steps of the Jedi Temple for what was very likely the last time he turned his eyes to the glorious sunrise peaking between the city's skyscraper studded horizon.

Though he knew the sunrise looked much like it always had everyday this time he saw it differently. It was the beginning of his new life. A life without the Jedi Order.

Though He felt no regret in his choice He had still wished that maybe…

"Anakin!" A familiar shout came from behind him in a voice that filled him both with warmth and guilt. "Anakin wait! Please! I need to talk with you!"

Anakin halted his descent and turned back to see his Master -Former Master- Obi-Wan standing at the stop of the stairs, his chest heaving and his face sweaty from chasing after him.

Anakin couldn't help it; a fond smile broke out over his face. He reversed his course and headed back up to the crest of the 750 steps and stood before his teacher. He didn't know what he was going to say now that he and Obi-Wan were alone and everything had been dragged out into the light. Apparently Obi-Wan had no idea either, but Anakin was alright with that. It was also funny to see the famous "Negotiator" at a loss for words.

Anakin decided to make the first move and plopped down on the steps and patted the spot next to him.

"Anakin, you can't _sit _on the 750 steps." Obi-Wan lectured on pure reflex. He stiffened at realizing his mistake but Anakin just chuckled and patted the spot again, insistent.

"I can and I will. And so can you Master." Anakin realized his own slip of the tongue but let it go. Hearing him say that seemed to put Obi-Wan a bit more at ease and to Anakin's pleasant surprise actually sat down on the steps, albeit after daintily dusting off the stone and primly setting his dress robes properly around his lap as if he was still in the council chamber.

They shared a quiet moment just allowing each other's familiar presences to relax the other. Gradually their mental defenses lowered and their Force-bond flickered to life, singing with bittersweet memories and dancing with Obi-Wan's light and Anakin's jaded and intense will.

When he felt ready Anakin was the first to break the silence, his voice a hoarse whisper.

"My mother died."

Shocked silence seized Obi-Wan and Anakin felt it in their Force-bond.

Obi-Wan felt as if his heart had been gut-checked by Rancor. Black tendrils of guilt wrenched his throat shut.

Anakin had told him of his dreams of his mother dying horribly and repeatedly several weeks ago. He had dismissed his Padawan's fears as a moment of weakness because of his lingering attachments. They had just been dreams, right?

Anakin's gaze drifted to Obi-Wan, his eyes clouded in fresh grief as he began his tale.

"I disobeyed you Master. Before you had been captured on Geonosis you commanded me to stay on Naboo and protect Pad- Senator Amidala." Anakin rubbed his tired eyes with his remaining flesh hand but did nothing to stem the tears that rolled down his cheek.

"Those nightmares of Mom dying continued and only got worse until one night I felt Mom reach out to me in my dream and scream my name. I-I decided to go, but I didn't want to disobey you until Padme offered to come with me so I could see Mom and still protect her. But when we a-arrived…"

Anakin's voice squeaked, he had to clear his throat. He flashed a weak and watery smile at Obi-Wan, this being more a confession to his Master than anything else.

"I have a step-father. And-and a step-brother and sister. They are moisture farmers, good, respectable people. Mom had been married for six years and had found freedom and I had no idea. I…I wasn't there."

Anakin blinked hard and let out a shaky resigned sigh.

"It happened little over a month ago. Mom had been gathering mushrooms when a band of Tusken Raider kidnapped her. That's when I began having those horrible dreams."

Unconsciously Anakin's flesh hand drifted over his golden mechanical hand, his thumb pricking at the exposed servo muscles in his wrist as he relived that terrible day.

"I found her in a Tusken Raider camp discarded like trash in a hovel. I cut my way through to try and rescue her but I-" He sobbed and cupped his human hand to his mouth. Obi-Wan was overwhelmed in the sorrow and agony flooding through their force-bond from his former Padawan. He felt tears of his own spill from his eyes as he hesitantly rested a hand comfortingly on Anakin's heaving shoulders.

"-Mom died in my arms." Anakin managed to choke out. He wrestled for control over himself and all the while Obi-Wan sat there patiently. Anakin drew from the calm and honest sorrow and guilt that rolled from his teacher. He wished he could sink into the force and let all his pain bleed away like Obi-Wan could. His former master was so much stronger than him and he could only hope to someday be almost as strong as him.

Anakin let out a long shaking breath and swallowed his tears. He could mourn later. He wiped his eyes and turned back to Obi-Wan.

"I got to say goodbye to her." He said. "All I could do was beg for her forgiveness for not being there for her and for being a horrible son. You know what she did?" He chuckled weakly. "She laughed at me."

Obi-Wan snorted in amusement, easily believing that the mother of his snarky Padawan was every bit as sharp-witted and teasing as her son.

"Mom told me she was proud of me." Anakin continued, his eyes drifting to the sunrise throwing beams of reddish light across the Jedi temple. "She told me I was her hero and that I don't have to be a Jedi to make her proud. She also made me promise her something."

"She told me never to stop loving, no matter how much it hurt." Anakin sighed. "So I intend to do just that. But I can't be a Jedi and love how I need to. So I had a choice to make and I chose a life without the Jedi Order."

"But… Anakin." Pain overcame Obi-Wan's face and Anakin crooked a grin and patted his teacher's knee.

"Master, I said a life without the Jedi Order, but I never said a life with you. I do love you." Obi-Wan blinked, startled at Anakin's blunt admission. Anakin's grin brightened. "I still want you in my life. You will always have a place with me. You are part of my family. How does brother Obi sound?"

Obi-Wan's breath hitched and he looked away but eventually he managed to retort albeit with a strained chuckle as he recalled an old nickname a certain Mandalorian senator had once called him. "I always preferred Ben myself."

Anakin laughed and Obi-Wan cracked a smile as hope returned to his eyes.

Perhaps all was not as lost as Obi-Wan had thought.

"So tell me Anakin," Obi-Wan began, a sudden surge of curiosity urging him to ask. "Do you think Padme is worth the risk of leaving the Jedi Order behind? What if you two don't work out?"

Anakin cracked a smile, not at all surprised that Obi-Wan knew which girl he intended to marry. "Leaving the Jedi Order was for me Master. I don't think I could be happy not being able to love, but Padme?" Anakin laughed brightly.

"She is worth my whole world."

A/N: I bet y'all didn't see this plot twist coming!

I feel that most of the pain and drama in Star Wars could have been avoided if Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padme, and the rest of the characters had only talked to each other rather than just locked everything inside and let it stew like a bunch of angsty tweens. Just admitting that you are not okay is more than half the battle and that alone would have steered Anakin clear from all of those years of suffering.

I wonder, now with everything out in the open and Anakin no longer a Jedi what will happen next?

I hope y'all enjoyed Shmi's Legacy as much as I did writing it. I relished the challenge with writing from Obi-Wan and Anakin's points of view throughout this project. I intend to continue this series, Shmi's Legacy being part 1 of a planned trilogy AU.

Be on the look out for part 2 of "Even If I Have To Give Up The Light"

See y'all soon!

-Untraveled


	4. Push Me Away, Let Me Go- Prologue

Push Me Away, Let Me go

Prologue

Waking up in an open-air bedroom surrounded on three sides by a Nabooian lake still feels like an odd fever dream for Anakin, even after nearly a year of waking to this beautiful sight.

It's a pleasant problem to have he admits, though more than once he had woken up in a haze and thought he was still in his dreamworld wandering the halls of his innermost wishes.

In his childhood the sands of Tatooine had burned his flesh and the ever-shifting desert sea claimed a fair share of his precious few friends. He knew those desert sands would have one day claimed him too if Qui-Gon hadn't put his faith in him all those years ago and freed him.

His next home, Coruscant, had been a completely different animal. Where there were massive rolling waves of sand in Tatooine Coruscant had imposing towers and a maze of deadly mid-air traffic lanes. Where his home world had Tusken Raiders, the city around the Jedi Temple had countless criminals and villains of every flag and creed. Where he had been a child with dusty open space with no hope of escape as a Jedi his entire world was red carpet temple halls and choking polluted atmosphere with short reprieves off-world while on missions or training trials.

Here on Naboo though it was fresh air with rolling green hills and forests with winding blue rivers of cool crystal clear water. Civilization was condensed to villages, towns, and cities scattered across the planet (and in the case of the Gungans throughout the seas and lakes) until one could walk for days even on the main road and not encounter another soul. Anakin saw himself as a creature of solitude and the lack of bodies pressing in on him like on Coruscant is something he treasures.

Creature of solitude or not his greatest joy was actually spending time with another person, specifically the one currently tangled up with him in a delightful jumble of bare leg and naked back peeking out from beneath the disheveled bed sheets.

Anakin could feel Padme's light snores tickle across his bare chest, her head a comfortable weight over his heart. Their naked bodies were practically glued together and judging the state of their bed sheets and the pleasant chill that contrasted with her comfortable warmth they had fallen asleep immediately after making love last night, not even bothering to burrow back under the covers.

His bedmate's long brown hair had freed itself from its loose bun sometime in the night and a few of her brunette locks were ticking his nose and threatening a sneeze that would surely wake the angel slumbering peacefully on his chest.

He fought the sneeze down to avoid waking her but when he looked down at the precious woman around him it was a foregone conclusion, his heart trembling at the breathtaking flood of emotions the sight of her invoked.

Most mornings when he finds the most beautiful creature in the galaxy still asleep in the bed next to him Anakin's grip on his emotions would slip and the shift in his force presence is enough to wake her, Padme, his wife. (His wife!) He still can't believe it. When he says it out loud his face still breaks out into a goofy grin that never fails to arouse a beet red blush on Padme's face when in the presence of others.

True to form Anakin's emotions flood his presence in the force in rolling wave strong enough that even non-force sensitives like his precious wife could feel. He felt her rouse from sleep with an incredibly adorable snort and she leisurely coiled her naked body around his like a snake around a warm rock. Anakin had to fight to rein in his libido at the lavish sensations of her body sliding and wrapping tighter around his scarred body in an unconsciously loving embrace.

"Mm.. Mornin'…" Padme hummed. Though he couldn't see her face Anakin could hear the smile on her face.

"Good morning." Anakin gently freed his human hand from their tangle embrace and trailed his fingers down the ape of her neck. The pleasant high pitched hum of contentment that rose from the back of her throat did funny things to his chest eliciting another rolling wave of happiness to break from his force presence and wash over the couple like a warm breeze.

"Mm… I love it when you do that…" Padme mumbled. Anakin chuckled.

"You do that to me." He answered honestly and to his delight Padme giggled.

Anakin's powerful force presence had been a sticking point early on in their relationship, or more a sticking point for Anakin himself, especially where Padme is concerned even if the consequences were harmless. The first few times he had woken Padme from his sleep because of his emotions flooding across his force presence he had almost begged for her forgiveness.

It took Padme having to hold him in her arms in bed one morning for nearly an hour as she patiently explained that being woken by his feelings for her is the best part of her morning and better than being woken by any alarm. He still doubted that sometimes but he was getting better at trusting himself with her.

Anakin had always worn his heart on his sleeve and the same went for his presence in the force, just as the faded scars criss crossing his body marked his history as a slave. Masking his emotions had always been difficult for him but he could do it, although it taxed him both physically and emotionally. He was just bad at it, unlike his teacher and friend Obi-Wan.

Whenever his emotions would overtake his control Anakin would always feel guilt and bitterness towards himself. He was the Chosen One! (as much as he despised the title) He should be better than this! Padme would remind him that he was only human and she loved him for it as much as his mother had.

Speaking of the woman that loved him Anakin could feel her breathing ease into soft snores. She was falling asleep again. He glanced up at the chrono above the archway leading to the balcony and sighed.

"Angel…" he whispered into her ear. She mumbled and burrowed into his chest to get away from the world. He cracked a fond smile but tried again, knowing she wouldn't want to sleep the day away.

"Angel? Time to get up."

"Ghmmf?" Padme's arms tightened around him. "Wut time izzit?" She asked.

"It's half past 9 my love."

"Hmph… 5 mor minutss…" Padme huffed and wiggled her butt as she got comfortable on top of her delightfully warm husband. Anakin felt her hips wiggle against his leg and he grinned devilishly.

Carefully as to not let his sleepy wife onto his game Anakin slid his Mechno-hand that was cold from the morning air and gave Padme's bare ass a squeeze.

A squeal of surprise slipped from Padme's lips and she shot up from the bed and climbed her husband like a ladder to get away from the chilly metal fingers assailing her. She had wrapped her naked body around Anakin's head with her eyes wide and searching for her attacker and trying to figure out where that odd wheezing sound was coming from.

She stayed like that frozen on top of the pillows until she finally looked down and found the source of the wheezing, her husband clutching his sides and dying of laughter. Padme glanced down at his Mechno-hand and back at his face a few times until her sleepy brain finally connected the dots and she slapped his shoulder.

"You jerk!" She exclaimed, her anger only made him laugh harder. Padme uncoiled from her perch on the pillows and with an evil smirk of her own she leapt on top of her mischievous husband and counter attacked viciously, her fingers tickling his sides, teasing numbed scar tissue and sensitive skin. Anakin jerked away from his wife's relentless assault and teetered on the edge of the bed and quickly began to lose balance. Determined not to go out without taking his nemesis with him he hooked a leg around her waist and with a squawk of surprise they both slid off the bed into a tangle of limbs and laughter.

Anakin lay splayed on the ground trying to catch his breath as Padme sat up on his stomach victoriously with a grin on her face.

"I win." She cooed with a coy wink.

Anakin laughed weakly and ran his human hand along her thigh, his clear blue eyes sparkling with the promise of something more when to his great dismay a loud chirping rang from his holo-comm on the bedside table. They both groaned.

Anakin saw Padme reach up to the bedside and went up to catch her arm. "No, no, wait, that ringtone is for a video-call!"

"Oh." He was too late, Padme and already clicked the blinking call button.

A shuddering blue hologram of Obi-Wan Kenobi sprung to life above the comm-link. The Jedi Master was dressed in traditional Jedi battle robes accented with white clone armor on his shoulders and arms with a diplomatic and polite smile on his face.

"Anakin!" Obi-Wan beamed. "I'm surprised you actually… picked…up." He blinked at the two naked adults staring back at him with blank looks of horror on their faces with Senator Amidala astride his former apprentice's stomach. "I-is this a bad time?"

Padme squeaked and before Anakin could say anything to salvage the situation his wife showed her wisdom under pressure and threw the holo-comm across the room as hard as she could. The small device smacked against the wall and the couple stared back at each other with bright red faces and cold sweat running down their necks.

"Do... do you suppose-?" Anakin asked, his cheeks burning.

"…Y-yeah, perhaps we should." Padme agreed, her own face equally as flushed as her husband's.

"..Yeah."

"Yes."

As one Anakin and Padme climbed to their feet and padded over to the closet and scrambled to clothe themselves. Though they were shoulder to shoulder in their haste neither husband or wife got in each other's way, Anakin used the force a few times to deftly clip his wife's bra on or hold a parcel of clothing still so she could better slip her arm through a stubborn sleeve. Padme did the same for her husband, helping him into his brown flight jacket and slipping his insulating black glove on over his Mechno-hand so he could clasp the bindings tight around his metal wrist. In record time both were dressed and besides their bed-head (which Anakin felt Padme's was criminally adorable) they were presentable.

When Anakin and Padme both managed to get their fiery blushing under control Anakin retrieved the Comm-link and held it up showing a shimmering blue Obi-wan with his hand plastered over his face with a long-suffering sigh slipping from his lips.

"I hope you too are actually clothed this time?" Obi-wan asked, his voice thick with exasperation.

"Y-yes Master." Anakin coughed. Padme groaned in refreshed embarrassment and let her forehead fall against her chastised husband's arm to hide from the Jedi Master's judging gaze.

Obi-Wan lifted his face from his hand and seeing the young couple modest. He still found it odd to see Anakin in pilot's garb rather Jedi robes but the leather jacket, brown mechanic's leggings, and black undershirt and boots fit him. Obi-Wan cleared his throat to address his former padawan.

"I felt you wake Anakin and the Jedi Council had wanted to speak with you…"

Padme stiffened and raised her head, the familiar mask of Naboo's senator overtook the demure face of Anakin's wife. She was all business now, albeit with still slightly red cheeks.

"Master Kenobi, Anakin has left the Order over a year ago. No matter how many times they ask you are not going to take my husband away from me."

Anakin glanced over to his wife with a smile that quickly turned into a shit-eating grin when he looked over at the hapless Jedi General.

"You both know that I am on your side, but you are of course right Senator Amidala." Obi-wan, ever the diplomat, slid his hands to the small of his back and respectfully dipped his head. Satisfied Padme eased her steely expression.

Anakin tapped his wife on the hip to take over the conversation saying, "If you two are finished fighting over me- as flattering as it is- Perhaps I could catch up a little with the honorable and mighty Jedi General before I have to leave for work?"

Padme threw him a smirk and a roll of her soft brown eyes and slipped from his embrace towards the master bathroom to properly fix the crow's nest masquerading as her hair. Anakin cracked a grin himself and left the master bedroom and retreated to the senator's living area with a spring in his step.

"You seem happy."

Anakin blinked, surprised by Obi-Wan's straightforward statement. He stole one more glance back at his and Padme's bedroom and cracked an open smile.

"I think… I am." He admitted carefully, as if afraid that just speaking those words would jinx this small peaceful moment in his life. His life since leaving the Jedi Order hasn't exactly been all stars and rainbows.

Anakin and Padme had gotten married about six months prior after quietly courting outside the public's eye for five or so months. They had differences and disagreements aplenty but both Anakin and Padme wanted the same things, they just had different ways of going about them. Both wanted to make this relationship work and the only way for that to happen was if they put in the effort.

Both brought their own special flavor of baggage into the relationship as well. Anakin's scars ran deeper than just his flesh and his insecurities fought him at every turn, not to mention this was his first real romantic relationship. Padme perhaps is better put together in that regard but she has her own fears and her past romantic track record isn't exactly stellar. she had made mistakes, specifically in regard to her last relationship with another senator, though she is determined to avoid repeating the past with Anakin.

Obi-Wan refrained from speaking further seeing Anakin's distracted, far-off look, though he did seem to pay closer attention to the young man wondering what exactly was going through his mind.

Padme's Nabooian lakeside apartment was set into the cliffside of the city of Theed, the capital of Naboo and the very same city Anakin had defended as a 9 year old. Padme's apartment was large and spacious, more resembling an egg shaped cave than living quarters.

Nabooian architecture revolves around circular designs and elegant flowing curves, Anakin and Padme's apartment were no exception. The open floor living area was oval in shape much like the rest of the large apartment with the kitchen on the back wall and the living room and dining table next to the balcony overlooking the lake.

The kitchen was sunken below floor level in a gentle slope and oval in shape with an island in the center and appliances surrounding it on one side. The dining table and furniture in the living room were much the same design and dyed in red and gold much like the color of a rising sun on the horizon.

Anakin swept across in the room quietly appreciating the feel of thick carpet and cold tile beneath his bare feet. With practiced ease the former Jedi skirted around the kitchen island tossed the still active comm-link onto the caramel marble countertop beside the stove and began scavenging from the refrigerator and cabinets in search of breakfast. Pulling out a half empty package of nerf- bacon and uncovering a few ingredients for pancakes. (local whole grain of course, his wonderful wife's sense of duty rears its head in the funniest places)

As Anakin worked the six inch tall Jedi Master shimmering over the comm-link watched his former apprentice go about his morning routine in a comfortable silence. Seeing Anakin, the same boy hell-bent on throwing himself into every fight and breaking every rule go about such a domestic chore was a novelty to him. Seeing so much war and death in the past year since the Clone Wars began Obi-Wan found such a quiet and normal display jarring and out of place. He found that he wanted it too.

"How was the assault on Rattatak?" Anakin asked, placing a pan over the stove and sliding a few strips of nerf bacon on.

"Horribly sandy." Obi-Wan replied dryly, garnering an overly dramatic shiver and a revolted gagging sound from Anakin. "How is it that over 80% of the planet's landmass is forest and the separatists still manage to stick themselves in the planet's only desert?"

"Well where else could those clankers find enough sun to keep their tan plated complexion?" the younger man threw back over the rising hiss of cooking bacon.

Obi-wan huffed. "perhaps I should drag you with me next time? even over the holo you look pale enough to see through. When was the last time you actually went outside?"

Anakin snorted and poured a pre-mixed bowl of pancake batter onto another pan. "Just last night. Padme wanted to go see a show from a local trope down at Theed's central villa. It was nice. I think you would have liked it."

"Oh?" Obi-wan quirked a brow with amusement dancing about his eyes. "and why would that be?"

"Because it was a political drama. Every bit as dry and boring as you are."

"You just have no taste." Obi-wan scoffed.

"I did discover one thing last night." Anakin said, promptly ignoring his friend's jab with a lopsided grin pulling at his lips. "I never knew that talks of articles, policies, and trade agreements could be a turn-on."

Obi-Wan furrowed his brow. "I thought you found the play dry and boring?"

"True, but Padme was anything but dry and boring last night."

"Anakin!" Obi-Wan exclaimed, scandalized and a little shocked at his former apprentice's audacity. All the Jedi master's outrage managed to accomplish was to broaden his evil grin even further. The little nerf-herder's face looked like it was about to split in two.

Obi-Wan sighed helplessly at Anakin's crude humor and decided to move on before he finds out more about his friend's sex life. He can't unsee what he had already saw earlier that morning.

Still chuckling to himself Anakin turned back to the bacon and pancakes sizzling away on the stove. Soon though their conversation turned to deeper matters.

"I missed doing our meditation sessions, you know, while you were gone." Anakin confessed, deftly flipping a pancake in its pan until it turned a crisp gold brown. Obi-Wan nodded in agreement.

"I did as well. Have you made much progress in your studies in tutaminis?" the Jedi General asked.

"A bit." Anakin replied with a smug turn in his lips.

"So I can take it you have something of a breakthrough?" When Anakin did reply except to continue to smile Obi-Wan pressed. "Well? Don't leave me in the dark my former padawan! Tell me!"

"Alright, alright!" Anakin laughed, sliding the pancake he had just finished heating onto a waiting plate and exposing the stove's heating element.

Anakin set the empty pan down and looked at his friend's hologram. "Check this out."

Then he placed his bare human palm on the glowing hot heating element and took a deep breath. Obi-wan initially flinched seeing Anakin pressing his flesh onto glowing hot metal but no ripple of pain surged through their force bond, nor did the former Jedi look in any sort of pain.

Anakin did feel the stove's heat but his recent breakthrough in his training allowed him to instead pull the heat from his hand, down his arm and settle it into his chest. Instead of hurting the searing heat turned warm and thrilling as it churned and spread across his body.

The force-sensitive lifted his Mechno-hand palm up and sent the warmth down his other arm and out of his artificial fingertips. The redirected heat sparked and a white hot flare unfurled above his hand with a shuddering hiss.

Anakin felt no small amount of pride and satisfaction at Obi-Wan's wide eyed expression of fascination.

"Oh my…" Obi-wan breathed, extremely impressed despite himself. "You call this just "a bit" of progress?"

Anakin shrugged and lifted his hand from the stove and shaking the flare away, extinguishing it in a soft puff of sparks.

"I'm confident in doing this much but stealing heat and just moving it around is very different from blacking laser bolts with my bare hands. I'm still having trouble with converting blaster bolts into other types of energy, though I think I have gotten better at reflecting them in the past couple weeks."

"Regardless, it seems you've found your niche."

"Hah! Lightsabers, who needs 'em?" Anakin asked with a flippant smile, drawing a chuckle from Obi-Wan.

"Indeed. Though I hope that you won't ever have to actually use your tutaminis technique in actual combat." The Jedi General agreed soberly.

"I have faith that if every other Master has even a fraction of your determination then I won't have to." Anakin replied honestly, leaving Obi-wan a bit off-kilter. He still wasn't completely used to his formerly angsty and surly padawan being so… open and bright.

Before an awkward silence could fully take hold between the two Anakin mercifully moved on.

"How has the war in the outer rim going? Are your guys doing alright?"

Obi-Wan visibly relaxed, falling into a vein of conversation he found he liked.

"Commander Cody is as stalwart as ever, as is the rest of the 212th, though truth be told we could all use a short rest." Obi-Wan replied, mindful not to say anything about his next destination or where he currently is. Though he trusted Anakin explicitly both men knew it would be foolish and reckless to speak of official matters and sensitive information over an unsecure channel.

"Perhaps you can come here to Naboo?" Anakin suggested, only half-joking. "There are facilities here to at least handle your fleet for a few days?"

Obi-Wan's regretful frown spoke for itself. "I would love to but I don't think that is possible."

The words the Jedi master spoke didn't raise any flags in Anakin's mind, but the tense way Obi-Wan said them sent alarm bells ringing in his head. the stoic frown Obi-Wan leveled his way was all the confirmation he needed.

Anakin may have been rash and hard-headed as a padawan but perhaps the one diplomatic skill he picked up from his master was the ability to read between the lines.

_Obi-Wan's fleet is pursuing someone? That doesn't bode well. _

"That's a shame." Anakin replied with a sigh. His disappointment was genuine but it couldn't hurt to keep up the ruse in case someone else was listening to their conversation.

"What's a shame?" Padme asked, stepping out of the master bedroom with a billowing cloud of steam following in her wake and her damp hair pulled back into a brunette ponytail that Anakin found practically ravishing.

Swallowing thickly and pulling himself from his lustful thoughts Anakin gestured to Obi-Wan's six inch tall hologram.

"I invited the old geezer over to visit but apparently he's too busy playing soldier." He answered with a grin. Obi-Wan scoffed and Padme snorted in laughter.

The Nabooian senator glided over to his side and made to reach for the plate of food. Anakin lightly slapped her hand away from the pancakes causing her to retract her hand and shoot her husband a look of deep hurt.

"Don't look at me like that." Anakin chastised his playful wife with a laugh. "Go sit down and I'll bring the food to you when it's ready."

"Why?" Padme asked throwing a pointed glance at the stove like it had kicked her puppy. "You don't trust me in the kitchen?"

"Not for a second my love." Anakin replied without a hint of hesitation, remembering the time he nearly became one with the force when Padme decided to cook for him one night early into their relationship. He still wondered how someone as competent as Padme could live for so long without knowing how to cook, let alone somehow manage to burn salad!

Then again, she had been the Queen of an entire planet at the age of 14 so he guessed he could cut her some slack.

Padme pouted while fighting back a smile and did as he asked and settled into a seat around the dining table. Anakin finished cooking their breakfast while trading a few more domestic questions with Obi-Wan. A garbled blaring alarm from Obi-Wan's end of the connection interrupted their conversation. A clone trooper materialized from the edge of the hologram and spoke urgently in Obi-Wan's ear. The Jedi General scowled at whatever news the trooper brought and nodded, dismissing the clone. He turned back to Anakin with a serious frown on his face.

"I'm sorry, something has come up. I'm afraid we are going to have to cut our conversation short."

"I understand." Anakin replied halfway to the dining table. "Give those Seppies hell Master. May the force be with you."

Obi-Wan chuckled. "May the Force be with you Anakin." Then he cut the connection.

Anakin clicked his comm-link off and slipped it into his pocket and settled into the seat next to his wife with two plates floating in behind him.

"Breakfast is served my lady." Anakin gestured, mentally pulling the floating plates of food and setting them down in front of himself and Padme.

"This looks great!" Padme inhaled deeply. "Smells amazing."

"Bet it tastes even better." Anakin cheekily added, earning himself a roll of her eyes.

Their front door slid open just as the couple tucked into their meal and the familiar shuffling quick-step that followed announced the start to their day.

"Mistress Padme! Mistress Padme! Oh dear, I am so glad you are up! Oh it's horrible! Horrible! You must come quick!" C-3PO sped-hobbled across the room with a quickness, his golden plating shining in the morning sun. R2-D2 rolled in after the panicked protocol droid, adversely calm in comparison to his companion.

Padme didn't bother sparing the chattering protocol droid a glance, instead she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Anakin laid a hand over hers and gently squeezed. Her eyes still closed Padme gave a small smile and squeezed his hand back. She released his hold and leveling a serious and calm glare in C-3PO's direction.

"I'll be right there Three-PO." She sighed and gave her husband a regretful look. "I guess I better get going."

"The senate waits for no woman, I get it." Anakin beckoned at his connection with the force and both plates rose into the air and landed next to the sink. He rose at the same time as her and opened his arms.

Padme took the invitation and slid into his embrace and hugged him for a long moment, savoring his warmth with her head resting on his chest. Eventually they separated with a short kiss and Padme turned to the bathroom to finish her hair leaving Anakin to clean the kitchen.

R2-D2 rolled over to the former Jedi as he scraped the remnants of food into the trash disposal and scrubbed the dishes clean and twittered a greeting.

"Morning to you too little buddy." Anakin replied patting the astromech's dome with a wet hand. "Just wait a second, I'll be ready to set out after I finish here."

After putting the dishes away Anakin stopped on his way out of the door and opened a coat closet, inside hung a dark leather utility belt with a Naboo LPM-1 Blaster sheathed in an attached hip holster.

Shaking the lingering oddness at the loss of his lightsaber Anakin slid the utility belt on and wrapped the hip holster secure to his right hip and swiftly left the apartment with long strides as Artoo zipped after him.

Making his way out of the underground apartment complex Anakin and Artoo bee-lined for the adjoined VIP hangar set aside for high-ranking officials and their families. A sleek chrome Nabooian shuttle sat on a cordoned landing pad with a pair of palace guards standing watch. one of the guards noticed the rapidly approaching former Jedi and rose a hand in greeting.

"Ah! Everyone's favorite crash-test dummy!" The guard said.

"I don't crash!" Anakin exclaimed, insulted at the very thought. "You don't walk away from a crash, I do so they are just rough landings!"

"Yeah, whatever Master Jedi." The guard scoffed. "Just make sure to keep your mitts out of the shuttle's cockpit. I don't fancy having a rough landing on the way there!"

Anakin didn't like being addressed as a Jedi. The Jedi Council never made an announcement as far as he knew, not that anyone outside a few Jedi would know or care, except perhaps for the Chancellor. It was also a painful reminder of what he had given up. Though he didn't regret the decision to leave the Order he had given over half his life in the pursuit to become a Master. He had decided to stop trying to correct others and just let sleeping dogs lie.

Anakin pushed away his conflicted feelings and flipped the guard the bird, boarding the shuttle chuckling. A couple dozen or so other personnel were already on board the shuttle and already strapped in. Anakin greeted the few people that he recognized and strapped in himself. Artoo peeled off to another part of the shuttle to join the other droids on board. A few minutes later the guards boarded and closed the hatch and the Shuttle took off.

Anakin sank into his seat and closed his eyes to meditate, his senses reaching out through the force. The shuttle vibrated and shook every now and then, the streamline spacecraft fighting turbulence in the upper atmo. Anakin frowned a little a the minute mistakes the pilot made, feeling every flinch and dip.

_It's like he's bound and determined to hit every pocket of cross-wind we come across!_

Shifting aside his mild irritation at something so trivial Anakin tried to inhale and breathe out slowly in a technique Obi-Wan tried to teach him to bleed out his negative emotions into the force. It… kind of worked. Anakin still wasn't good at letting go.

Mercifully Anakin felt the shuttle begin to descend, the hull shuddering against the thicker air resisting their downward vector. Soon the shuttle landed and Anakin was already out of his seat, more than a little excited to get to work.

Fort Mickeal Research Center is the Naboo Planetary Defense Force's main Spacecraft R&D Facility. Naboo's space technology had stagnated in recent decades and it wasn't until the eruption of the Clone Wars that forced Naboo's sparse military forces into developing new weapons and vehicles to combat the Separatist threat. Anakin managed to snag a position as a test pilot for the new second generation of Naboo's N-series of Fighters and he couldn't be happier.

Padme, understandably, wasn't nearly as enthused.

Making his way from the Shuttle to an open hanger Anakin and Artoo made good time and melded in with the late morning hustle and bustle. Fort Mickeal's layout is much like a primitive airport, cavernous hangars flanking multiple landing strips with a massive main building and command towers situated at every strip. Fort Mickeal is home to over 8,000 dedicated personnel, mostly researchers and technicians with a smattering of pilots and Naboo Self-Defense Force (N-SDF) troops. The base's operations were out in full force with every single soul going about their tasks with military precision.

Anakin and Artoo swam through the controlled chaos to their destination, Hangar A-2. the interior was a madhouse of loose circuitry, loose parts, half-complete ship hulls, and burnt out bits of tech scattered across the deck and at its center sat a single unpainted Starfighter.

Unlike outside the Hangar there were only a dozen people inside with a few droids milling about clearing the mess away from the Starfighter. Anakin sidestepped a gonk droid toddling away to its charge station and approached the group of people surrounding the Starfighter. three of the beings were test pilots, a female bothan, a male gungan, and another male human. The rest of the merry band were the researchers and technicians and currently all of them were busy arguing.

"No, I'm telling you, that won't work! The T-17 power core isn't enough to handle the output needed for high-speed maneuvers in-atmo!" The female Bothan barked, waving her arms animatedly, the helmet coming very close to clocking the human pilot next to her. the Gungan pilot rolled his eye-stalks and stuck out his tongue in agitation, interrupting her.

"-anda me-sa tell you dat it's fine!" The Gungan babbled in butchered basic. "You-sa just-a bad flyah!"

"Why you!"

"Well, I suppose there is only one way to find out for sure, isn't there?" Anakin asked sliding an arm around the arguing pilots and scaring them both half to death.

"Skywalker!" The Bothan's canine-like face stretched in surprise as she reeled back, her hand over her pounding heart. "By the Stars, are you trying to give me a heart attack?!"

The Gungan's reaction was similarly hilarious, his eye-stalks stuck straight up in terror and his guppy-like mouth was stretched wide open in a silent scream. finally relaxing the gangly alien slumped, his body sagging like a wet noodle as he pointed one eye at the former Jedi in a glare.

Anakin just flashed him a cheek grin and turned to the rest of the group. He nodded at the Bothan under his arm.

"Good morning to you too Aela-" He justled the Gungan next to him. "-and Gen-Dan. It's good to see you."

"Someone got laid last night." The human pilot chirped. Anakin stayed silent, only grinning wider in response, pulling a yipping laugh from Aela.

"A gentleman never kisses and tells, Conner." Anakin replied.

"Gentleman? Hah! What-the-kriff-ever _Master Jedi._" Aela scoffed, shrugging off the tall human's arm and promptly slugging it hard with a furry little fist. Anakin rubbed his arm and threw the short alien female a deeply hurt expression.

the four pilots traded a few more friendly barbs then turned their attention back to the sleek Starfighter in front of them.

The Starfighter lay secured on a trailer, its familiar basic design reflective of Nabooian tastes with flowing sharp curves and fancy swept back armor. This prototype mirrored the N-1 Starfighter Anakin had flown as a child 11 years prior in the battle over Naboo. The Starfighter's only significant design change was the pointed tail had been split in two parts like a swallow with a swivel thruster integrated into the frame to give the spacecraft increased maneuverability, something the old N-1's lacked. This new design, dubbed the N-2F, is a dedicated counter-fighter/ interceptor with update J-type thrusters and dual twin laser cannons in its nose at the cost of its long range sensors and much of its proton torpedo magazine size.

Two researchers were off the the side arguing with the lead technician while the rest of the tech team scrawled all over the dull gray Starfighter, poking and prodding at its exposed guts with calibration equipment while one Gungan sat in the single-man cockpit checking gauges and controls. a few minutes later the tech's confirmed their work and gave the pilots a thumbs-up.

"So… who's up for taking this tin can up for a spin?" Conner asked, side-eyeing Anakin with a sly look on his face. The other two pilots turned their gazes to the hapless former Jedi. Anakin made a show of rolling his eyes and beckoned Artoo over.

"Alright you yellow-bellied womp-rats. Let your ol' Master Skywalker show you how it's done!" He exclaimed, clambering into the cockpit as Artoo sped underneath the hull and hooked into the Astromech slot and rose upward into the fuselage.

"Yeah, sure. Just don't crash this time!" Aela called after him.

"I didn't crash, it was a rough landing!"

Anakin settled in and pulled a folding headset from his utility belt and hooked it around his temple and catching a few of his honey brown locks. His hair was getting a bit long lately, perhaps he should ask Padme to cut it soon?

The former Jedi flicked the power core on and booted up the start sequence. the Starfighter's fusion core shuddered and caught with a deep rumble. With an expert eye he swept his gaze across the instruments as the gauses rose and fell and the N-2F's systems came online in blue and white hues.

"Core's online and stable, power reserves full… cooling system is flowing clean with life support, shields, and weapons control coming back green." Anakin relayed over the headset, the N-2F's thundering hum drowning out any voices from outside the cockpit. Anakin made eye contact with the lead technician and researchers and gave the thumbs ups. "Am I clear to start engines?"

[You are green to go Skywalker.] The lead Tech said over his own headset, illiceting a wild smile from the pilot.

"Roger that. Everyone get clear!" With growing anticipation pulsing in his chest Anakin punched the ignition switch and a whirring whine rose from the vehicle and blue fire erupted from the J-type thrusters with a thrilling roar.

Anakin's wild grin was almost beginning to hurt as he sat back in the cockpit and took a moment to just bask in the raw power thrumming around and behind him. He flipped a switch and toggled the repulsors raising the Starfighter off its trailer and kicking up a small cloud of air and dust, sending the surrounding beings' clothes flapping.

[Skywalker, you are clear to launch.] Anakin looked down and saw Aela standing next to the lead tech, speaking to him through her headset. They had retreated to an array of screens and computers receiving from a number of cameras and sensors attached to the Starfighter to track its progress. She flashed him a smile. [Just… remember to take it slow-]

The Bothan never managed to finish the sentence as Anakin gunned the throttle and the N-2F screamed out of the hangar, throwing the laughing former Jedi back in his seat and Artoo whooping in excitement behind him. Anakin banked a hard left, reveling in the N-2F's improved handling, and kept low and fast just a scant few dozen feet above the heads of those on the runway below.

When Anakin cleared the runway he aimed his nose skyward and then really opened up the throttle, Artoo automatically rerouted power from the now useless repulsors to the engines. The sudden sink of rapidly lowering pressure made Anakin's head begin to swim and his blood flow thicker. He started his counter-breathing exercises and tugged on the Force, cloaking it around himself and squeezed; the pressure helped to keep his blood from pooling in his legs and keep it flowing in his brain so he didn't pass out.

[You don't know the meaning of take it slow, do you?] Aela asked, her voice deadpan even over the crackling comm-channel.

"Never." Anakin laughed, turning his attention to the dashboard and checked the equipment. "Everything seems to be running smoothly, though the Power Core does seem to be burning a little hot." He reported to the tech and research team.

"Artoo? Are there any systems online that don't need to be running?" Artoo twittered a negative. Anakin frowned a little and spoke over the comm-channel again. "It seems you may be right Aela, the T-17 core does seem to struggle to keep up with demands while flying in-atmo. though it could just be because the system hasn't acclimated yet…"

[Go ahead and conduct a few maneuvers at varying altitudes. We will monitor any changes from down here.]

"I had thought you'd never ask." Anakin broke over the lower plane of clouds and found himself in a world of fluffy white and crystal blue. He took in the view and then banked, cutting through the air without so much as a tremor rattling through the starfighter's hull.

Pulling a few loop-de-loops, dives, and rapid ascents Anakin put the N-2F through its paces until Artoo squawked, grabbing Anakin's attention. Anakin leveled out the fighter and addressed the astromech.

"What is it Artoo?" The Astromech twittered and beeped, reciting the problem in binary. Anakin scrawled the dashboard and frowned. He clicked his tongue.

"Hey Aela, it seems pulling those maneuvers in-atmo are overheating the power core. My reflector shields are failing."

[Well, at least we're not in combat, so we don't have to figure this out the hard way.]

"True. What about in space though?"

Aela took a few moments longer to reply but she eventually got back to him saying, [You're good to take a lap around Low Orbit Defense (LOD) Array 13. Just make sure to take it easy on re-entry.]

"Oh ye of little faith." Anakin chuckled. "Copy that Aela. Taking a trip to the stars, I'll be right back."

Anakin nudged the fighter upward and started to climb at a gentle incline. "Artoo, set the Nav-computer to LOD Array 13." The hardy astromech chirped an affirmative and a blip sprang on the scanner.

Anakin aimed at the coordinates and pushed the throttle to its maximum velocity, a screaming 800 MPH (1287.48 Km/h). A faint boom rippled at the edge of his hearing as the N-2F broke the sound barrier and shot out of Naboo's atmo and into low orbit and with it all sound outside the cockpit fell silent. A few thousand yards away Anakin spotted a tiny speck floating over the horizon line, the LOD Array.

Low Orbit Defense Arrays are an old concept, small space stations scattered across a planet's orbit that contained a contingent of Starfighters to intercept any nearby threats, both from space and on the surface. The station itself is made up of modular tube attachments around a circular central hull topped with a command bridge. The small station is only armed with a dozen-odd turbolaser towers and a few small ion cannons suited for anti-fighter support, though if used in tandem they could pose a threat to smaller corvettes.

Anakin kept an eye on the N-2F's power core capacity and load levels and found them dropping into the yellow, just at the upper edge of its acceptable parameters. Not having any air resistance to cut through took a lot of stress off of the engines, though even then the power core was running a little too hot for comfort.

"I'm in space. The core's load is still too high, though my reflector shields did just come back online."

[Roger that Skywalker. Take that lap and come back down so the techs can see what they can do. I call flying next!]

Anakin chuckled as he neared the LOD Array and spun a tight circle around it, taking a second to wave out of the cockpit at a group of officers manning the Array's bridge. Artoo beeped happily as a few of the officers waved back, the cheeky little droid basking in the attention.

Anakin's smile lasted all the way until he was a few seconds of re-entry. A sudden and very unpleasant pressure flared in the back of his skull, a premonition, a feeling of dread that rose up from everywhere but was pointed at nowhere.

There is a disturbance in the Force.

Anakin snatched the Starfighter from his descend and whipped his head around to the black abyss of twinkling stars, the sense of dread sharpening to a painful razor sharp point.

_I have a bad feeling about this… _

"Hey Aela…" Anakin's fingers instinctively searched for the laser cannon controls. "Just by chance, are my cannons charged?"

[...Yes. why?]

As if to answer or perhaps mock him the black abyss rippled violently and suddenly the void was filled with an armada of horribly familiar shapes rapidly approaching in formation straight towards him.

It was a Seperatist fleet!

Anakin broke out into a cold sweat as his face grew grim and his grip tightened on the joystick.

Aela's voice sounded faint with fright as she whispered, [Oh… that's why.]

Anakin groaned softly.

"I really should have stayed in bed today."


	5. Fire Above Naboo

**DROID ARMY ON THE MARCH**

**Jedi General OBI-WAN KENOBI and the 212th Attack Legion rushed to the aid of the 501st Legion, led by Jedi General PONG KRELL in pursuit of a phantom fleet of CIS warships cutting a swath of devestation across Republic controlled space.**

**In low orbit above NABOO former jedi ANAKIN SKYWALKER is conducting a test flight of a prototype nabooian starfighter when a massive SEPARATIST ARMADA suddenly attacks the peaceful planet, forcing the few brave defenders into a desperate struggle for survival.**

**Under the flashes of fire and death from the furious battle in the skies above Senator PADME AMIDALA rushes to the THEED PALACE in the hopes of sending out a distress signal before the planet falls to the separatists and her husband dies defending her in a war neither one of them want a part of…**

Episode 1: Fire Above Naboo

When the Separatists came there was no warning, no sign. One second Padme is beating her metaphorical head against the metaphorical wall negotiating for a reduction of clone trooper production with a selection of allies and vital players in the Senate.

The next, half of the city was on fire.

A breath before the first bomb landed raid alarms triggered from the Low Orbital Defense Arrays lit up across the city, then the first wave of droid starfighters took out the Comms array scattered out across the city of Theed, knocking out any type of communication with the outside world. Their objective was to cut Theed off from the outside world, and they succeeded.

With the connection with the LOD arrays cut off the raid alarms sputtered out, leaving only the thunder and screech of droid starfighters ravaging the city. Only Theed Palace sat mostly untouched. The raid alarms automatically activated the palace's shield generators, saving it from the worst of the bombardment. Then the screams. A collective wail of shock, pain, and despair rose up from the city itself, the terrible sound rising in pitch and volume as more voices joined the horrible chorus.

"Oh dear! Oh my! Oh Heavens! Oh Mistress Padme what are we going to do?!"

Oddly, Padme felt more annoyed than scared in the seconds following the attack. Annoyed and incredibly pissed off. Though, that may in part be the fault of the panicking protocol droid scuttling around her underground office. When the vulture droids knocked out the comms array they cut off the incredibly important discussion she was in the middle of. She's been attacked enough times to feel more exasperated then terrified outright, though the horrors of battle itself she could never get used to.

Having most of the administrative and political offices built into the plateau itself proved to be a wise choice in case Theed comes under siege. Padme figured she should be counting her blessings she came out of the initial assault completely unscathed, though all she was doing right now was slowly counting down from ten.

"Oh dear! What are we going to do?!"

"THREE-PO!" Padme snapped, her eyes screwed shut and her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off the nauseating wave of conflicting nerves roiling in her gut. The golden droid jumped at her shout, shuffling to face her.

"Y-yes Mistress Padme?"

Padme took a deep breath to center herself and leveled a serious frown in his direction. "Just calm down, okay?" She gathered herself and rose from her chair just as another tremor from the attack on the city above rocked the underground complex.

She she was still catching her balance the double doors to her office slid open and Captain Typho, Padme's faithful head of security since childhood, swept into the room, his last remaining eye darting around with his MPL-1 blaster -the very same model Anakin carried- in hand. After sweeping the room Typho made eye contact with Padme.

"Senator, we need to go. If we hurry we can take refuge inside the palace before the enemy begins to land troops and swarm us." Captain Typho's voice was calm as always, his words spoken in an unhurried cadence. Typho was by no means a large man, but his presence was that of a silent giant, never in the way but always within arms reach.

"Right." Padme didn't argue. She unclasped the gray skirt straddling her hips and let it fall to the floor unveiling the white body glove hugging her toned figure. She had always been more comfortable with wearing something she could move around easily in underneath her more formal attire. Tearing the loose and gangly gray blouse from her shoulders the young senator pulled back a desk drawer and clasped a belt and holster around her waist with her trusty ELG-3A holdout blaster sitting snugly in its leather restraint.

"Let's go Three-PO." Padme crossed the room and snatched the hapless protocol droid's arm and dragged him from the room, the droid weakly protesting the entire way.

"B-but Mistress Padme, why are we going outside the office? Isn't that where the b-battle droids are?"

It seemed Three-PO's brief stint as a quasi-battle droid on Geonosis scarred him deeper than Padme had thought. Or he's still just a coward. How this droid was the product of someone like her brash and fearless husband was beyond her.

"We can take the tunnels to the palace." Typho swept ahead a few yards in front of his charges as panicking workers and civilians ran up and down the halls in hysterical confusion.

Padme's heart broke seeing her people in such a state, and these are the lucky ones. The poor people on the surface were in far more dire straits. For all her outward confidence the young woman was inwardly trembling, her heartbeat pounding wildly in her chest. Only her experience in similar situations and Typho's presence allowed her to keep her cool.

Another violent tremor rocked the complex, this time a thundercrack ripped through the spherical corridor and Padme's world went white. She blinked and found herself sprawled against the wall, her ears ringing. To her relief Typho was only a few feet in front of her his expression hard enough to seem as if carved out of stone as her stared down the hallway ahead, his blaster held aloft in one hand.

"What was that noise?!" She tried to say over the ringing in her ears. A part of her felt foolish for trying, knowing full well that if she couldn't hear herself talk than her bodyguard certainly couldn't either.

Captain Typho considered the corridor ahead for a moment longer then gestured for her and C3-PO to follow. The people around her were in various states of disorientation, some crawling away, others clutching onto limbs of those passing or leaning heavily onto each other while a few were just screaming incoherently, those their voices were left unheard in the aftermath of whatever made that noise.

Padme had a bad feeling that she might know what that blast was.

Her fears were confirmed when they rounded a bend in the corridor and a cloud of dust billowed out and swallowed them in a suffocating haze.

Coughing into the crook of her arm Padme followed Typho's hazy figure further into the dust. The grey haze cleared at the same time her hearing, enough to both see the hundreds of tons of rock blocking their way, and the pinprick of light through the rubble filtering in the sounds of battle and screams of the dying.

Unfortunately, that also meant that Padme could now hear Three-PO again as well.

"Oh Heavens! The tunnel is collapsed! Oh no there is no way to get to the palace now! What are we going to do?!"

"Can it droid." Typho growled. The normally stoic bodyguard's grip on his control slipped for a moment but Padme couldn't help but agree.

"We are going to have to make a run for it." Padme said with a steel that she didn't feel. Fake it 'til you make it, just like Anakin says.

Captain Typho let out a weary sigh and nodded his reluctant agreement.

"You're right. Let me see if I can't move some of this rubble so we can squeeze through." He didn't wait for a reply, only pausing long enough to holster his blaster and scaled the concrete and rock and begin throwing aside the more movable pieces aside. Padme drew her own blaster and trained it on the slowly widening hole above them just in case.

"The surface! But Mistress Padme we can't possibly go up there! There's those terrible vulture droids and bombs and-"

"THREE-PO!"

"THREE-PO!"

"Right, muting now Mistress Padme..."

A few tense minutes of struggling and grunting and Typho managed to shift enough rubble out of the way to create a hole large enough to crawl out of. At first he was wondering how a bomb had managed to gorge out such a massive chunk of solid concrete to penetrate the tunnels underneath, then he poked his head out and balked.

The tunnel they had been following ran parallel with the main strip leading to the palace, now one side of the entire road and imploded in on itself, one of the bombs must have set off a chain reaction that set off one of the underground power reactors. A huge section of the road and a good two blocks of buildings had been swallowed, the tunnel had been on the very outer edge of the sink-hole and buckled the roof from the explosion.

Even now the seasoned bodyguard could see bodies strewn across the broken buildings, and no few people struggling to free their friends and family from the devastated wreckage as red laser fire rained down from above.

He closed his eye for a half second to block out the sight. He could allow it to haunt him later. He turned back to the tunnel below and stretched out a hand.

"Senator Amidala, Can you coax the droid up here."

"Ugh Three-PO, have you been putting on weight?" Padme did as she was bid and yanked a reluctant Three-PO forward by his golden chestplate and shoved him up the crumbling rocks into Typho's waiting hands.

" Gain weight? Me? How rude! W-wait Mistress Padme! The rubble will scratch my finish!"

Padme answered with a harder shove and Typho almost threw the floundering gold droid through the hole above. Padme clasped Typho's waiting hand and pulled herself up into the sinkhole with the Captain in tow. As they both gained their barings a flash of fire and a burning vulture droid hurtled out of the sky and smashed into the side of the sinkhole, throwing up shrapnel and plasma-fire.

Padme and Typho dove to the ground, Padme having to drag Three-PO down with her, just in time to avoid a dislodged flight stabilizer zip past their heads and detonate into the rocks behind them.

Padme made eye contact with her bodyguard and pointed to the spire scraping the clouds over the lip of the sink-hole. "We have to move!" She shouted over the din of battle.

Typho took it upon himself to drag Three-PO to his feet and the three scrambled up the sinkhole onto the street above. As they climbed Padme passed bodies of the dead and dying, some of her people were no more than pulped piles of meat and bone splattered among the rubble. Some of the living were trapped under the crumbling rock and bent steel, their limbs pinned and mangled.

Padme tore her eyes from her surroundings and focused forward, then stuttered to a stop. Just a few yards above her, over the lip of smashed shelf she saw a child, a little boy no more than six or so with curly blonde hair, clutching a teddy bear.

She couldn't ignore a child, especially when he was within reach. She knew it was stupid but she couldn't ignore the tearing in her heart.

The senator tore forward, her hands catching on a few jagged edges and drawing blood in her haste as she rushed to the little blonde body laying there. When she was a few feet from the shelf she called out to him.

"Hey, little boy!" He didn't seem to hear her so she hauled herself onto the shelf with him and shook his tiny shoulders. "Hey, no need to be scared, I'm a frien-"

Then she looked up to the rest of the boy, or lack thereof. The child's tiny figure ended just below his tiny ribs, the rocks were stained a deep sticky red with his insides spilling out from what was left of his little chest. The rest of the little boy was just… gone.

Padme didn't remember falling from the shelf and straight into Typho below her. She didn't remember him half-dragging half-carrying her to the street above.

What she did remember was the ragged teddy bear drenched in the little boy's blood. What she did remember was what she had to do.

They needed to get a message out. She only prayed the palace's emergency communication array had survived the assault.

Padme will not allow these _bastards _get away with this.

Harsh red laser fire churned the ground around them, the screech of vulture droids swooping overhead tore the air. Plasma bolts impacted and threw shattered stone and cobble into the air, showering Padme, Typho, and Three-PO in a painful hail of pulverized rock. The impacts were deafening, setting an agonizing ringing through the senator's head and throwing her across the street.

When the vulture droids pulled up from their dive Padme and Typho were cut in a dozen places, their ears bleedings, and breaths coming up ragged. Typho slid across the cobble dodging a stray laser bolt and hooked his charge's arm over his shoulder, pulling her to her feet. Three-PO's golden plating had been scarred and dented, his shiny finish marred badly, much to his dismay. The plating served its purpose though, his internals were rattled but intact.

"We gotta get to the palace steps!" Typho yelled, his booming voice barely a whisper over the din of battle and the ringing in Padme's ears. "If we can make it there the palace's shield generator will protect us!"

Padme absentmindedly nodded her agreement and grunted in pain, one leg torn at her thigh and bleeding profusely, staining her white bodysuit with red and filth. When the dust cleared to a foggy haze she saw the shapes of more of her people, some motionless and sprawled on the street, others running for their lives or pulling their friends and family to safety while some cradled the bodies of their loved ones, frozen in shock.

A pair of Gian Landspeeders barreled out of the dust, heavy laser cannons mounted on their hoods and Palace Guards manning them. One of the palace guards recognized the senator and her bodyguard and pointed, the driver cut a hard turn and the landspeeder slid to a stop a few feet in front of them. One of the Palace Guards leapt from the passenger seat and rushed over to help the wounded trio to the vehicle. The young man's padded brown uniform was splattered with someone else's blood and his leather bound steel helmet had a rent in the brow from deflecting a piece of wayward shrapnel.

"Senator Amidala! Captain Typho, thank the Force you're both alive!" As the young guard took Padme's other arm to carry her to the landspeeder the guard manning the cannon on the hood fired a burst into the air, green light splashing into the chaotic sky above.

The answering salvo of red lasers went wide, impacting harmlessly into the street around them and Padme saw a Vulture Droid's burning husk crash through the roof of an apartment building and explode, flinging brick and mortar earthward.

Typho deposited Padme and Three-PO into the back of the landspeeder and grabbed the guard's arm. "We need to get to the Palace! Is the emergency comms array still intact?"

The young guard pointed to the multi-layered spire piercing the sky, splashes of red and green light washing over a transparent field hugging the structure. "Right before the shields kicked on a laser bolt slipped through and torched the signal relay. We do have a team of techs rerouting the terminal to the array. Last I heard it should be back up in just a few more minutes."

"Good." Typho jumped into the passenger seat and the guard sat side-saddle on the edge of the landspeeder. Typho turned to the driver. "Get us to the palace steps!"

"Yessir! Hang on!" The driver whipped the landspeeder around and punched the throttle, throwing everyone back in their seats.

The driver didn't seem to have been familiar with the brake, the way he ducked and weaved through the battlefield Padme wouldn't have been surprised if he didn't know what a brake pedal was.

Was it bad that it reminded her of her husband's driving?

Probably not, Anakin did used to podrace. If anything this guy was tame as a grandma out for a morning toodle in her hover-buggy in comparison, and judging from the stories Obi-Wan had told her Ani still hasn't found the brake pedal himself.

The all too familiar screech of diving vulture droids broke Padme from her thoughts. She and several of the others turned around and saw a wing of the droid fighters bearing down on them, their laser cannons spitting red laser fire in a rapid alternating staccato.

"DODGE!" Typho screamed. "KRIFFING DODGE!"

The driver threw the wheel and the landspeeder jerked to the right, barely avoiding a fiery and sudden death. They didn't get out unskathed however, one of the laser bolts kissed the rear left repulser-lift with a nasty crunch and a gout of flame, trailing a dark cloud of smoke in their wake. The vulture droids shot past them overhead and banked sharply to the left.

"They're coming back around!" the young guard cried, at some point during the violent evasive maneuver the poor guy went from sitting side saddle to straddling the hood next to the cannon. He craned his head towards the driver. "Can't this thing go any faster?!"

"I have the pedal to the floor! We can't go any faster!"

"INCOMING!" Typho shoved Padme and Three-PO's heads down as the shrill scream of rapidly approaching droid fighters grew.

Padme glared over her shoulder to look at the ugly shapes tearing out of the skies towards them. If she was going to die she wanted to look death in the face at least.

A sudden burst of green light and the droid fighters became balls of fire and scrap metal. Those watching in the landspeeder gaped up in the sky in confusion until several blurs of yellow crossed the sky.

"It's the royal fleet!" The young guard laughed with only a touch of hysteria in his voice. "We're saved!"

The wing of three yellow N-1 Starfighters that saved them cut an elegant turn and let loose their twin cannons into a scrambled cloud of vulture droids. More than a dozen of the invaders were either destroyed or disabled, doomed to spiral earthward. More N-1's joined the first wing, the royal fleet quickly assembling into their squadrons and accelerated to meet the droid fleet head-on.

Padme let out her own little laugh of relief that soon sobered into a grim frown as the landspeeder passed through the transparent shield, the hair on the back of her neck sticking straight up from the static in the air around the rippling field.

The Gian Landspeeder slid to a halt at the foot of the palace steps between two massive bronze statues of Theed's founders at the statues' feet was a makeshift triage, the bodies of the dead and dying laid out on the stone in an orderly line as palace guards and volunteers rushed between the wounded trying their best to treat them.

Typho leapt from the Landspeeder and Padme followed with a bit of struggling under the weight of her wounded leg. Three-PO had to have help getting out by the young guardsman but by the time the protocol droid was finally free of the vehicle his mistress and her bodyguard were already inside the palace making a beeline for the emergency communications room. Within the palace's marbled halls were even more people fleeing from the destruction outside and no small amount of crying children.

Padme tamed the throbbing pain in her leg into a mild limp as she dodged palace guards and sidestepped clusters of terrified civilians. The worst part of the trip to the emergency communications room though were the unholy amount of stairs. How is anyone with shrapnel in their leg supposed to get anywhere in the place?

Finally they made it, the emergency communications room was just off the main audience chamber or more specifically they made it to the dual layered blast doors the communications room is sealed behind.

A pair of heavily armed and armored Royal Guards in silvery chromium reinforced plating stood ready at both sides of the door, their polished ornate long-blasters tucked to their shoulders and aimed loosely down the hallway in their direction. One of the guards recognized the battered figures making haste towards them and lowered his weapon and stepped forward, concern on his face.

"Senator Amidala, Captain Typho." The guard greeted curtly, lending his arm to the limping senator.

"Can you get us into the Comm room?" Typho asked, straight to the point.

"The Queen is already inside, attempting to hail Coruscant for reinforcements." The Royal Guard answered.

"And how is that going exactly?" Padme asked dryly.

"If you think you can be of any help I doubt her Highness will object." He admitted sheepishly, throwing the other guard a look and a nod towards the sealed door. The other guard stepped briskly to the blast doors and punched in the access code. The doors unlocked with the heavy snap of slamming bolts and the doors slid open with a hiss.

On the other side of the door was a circular room centered around a holo-console. A team of technicians in yellow and white leather uniforms were scattered around the room, two underneath the center console as the others ran thick cables from a panel in the wall to the console. In front of the console's controls stood a young woman -Queen Apailana- in silver livery and white face paint accented by deep red lipstick and a tall headdress with a curtain of beads running down her face, on both sides of the young matriarch stood a handmaiden and her personal bodyguard.

The young Queen looked up at the sound of the doors opening and the frustration and fear on her painted face melted away into a relieved and gentle smile.

"Padme!" The young woman shrugged off her overbearing bodyguard and met her friend halfway up the stairs leading to the console and embracing her in a quick but tight hug which Padme returned.

"My Queen, I'm so glad you are unharmed." Padme greeted in a far more reserved tone then her slightly younger matriarch.

"I'm happy you are alive." Queen Apailana released the senator and held her at arm's length, taking a look at her and her smile twisted into a frown when she caught sight of the blood staining her form, both from her friend and otherwise. "Though it seems even you haven't come out unscathed…"

"Enough about me my Queen, I'm a big girl." Padme replied with a smirk filled with confidence she didn't completely feel. "Any luck on contacting reinforcements from Coruscant?"

Queen Apailana's painted visage pulled into a scowl. "No, I'm afraid. According to the lead Technician the invaders managed to damage the Deep Space Transmitter. We can only transmit a message to anyone nearby. Having to relay a message from another planet will take time." The Queen sagged. "Time I fear we may not have."

Padme paled, a flash of despair flaring the ache of her wounds, magnified by a violent explosion rocking the entire palace.

They were all going to die.

She was going to die and never see Anakin again. Never feel his warmth again, his touch, never kiss that stupid, overconfident, smug, wonderful face of his. She was never going to hear his sweet, warm voice.

She was never going to be able to tell him she loved him ever again.

Her breath hitched and Padme fought down her sobs. Drawing on all of her schooling and experience as a politician Padme cleared her throat and stuffed her feelings in the back of her heart to deal with later.

If there is a later.

If only she could just yank her feelings out with the Force like Anakin says Obi-Wan does and-

"Obi-Wan!" Padme cried, hope soaring sharply in her chest. Queen Apailana nearly jumped out of her face paint and just stared at her friend with a bewildered expression.

"What?"

Padme noticed the weird look her Queen was giving her and composed herself, realizing how she must look like a raving lunatic.

She coughed self-consciously. "Not what, your Highness-"

"-But _Who_."

**Middle Rim**

**Hyperspace Lane #4375A **

**Onboard Venator Class Star Destroyer "Vigilance" **

"General Kenobi, General Krell is hailing us."

Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi let out a quietly frustrated sigh but straightened up and rose from his seat against the wall on the command bridge. He nodded to the clone trooper in yellow accented Phase 1 clone armor.

"Thank you Cody. I'll handle this, you go get some rest. I have a feeling you will need it."

"Thank you sir." Cody said, shedding his helmet with a twist and tucking it under his arm. "Oh and good luck." He added with a meaningful smirk before walking off to the mess hall.

Obi-Wan chuckled and reluctantly moved to the command console taking up center stage in the briefing room. With a calming breath he pressed the blinking receive button and the muscular four-armed visage of a towering Besalisk in Jedi battle robes burst into view in a shimmering cloud of blue motes.

Besalisks were a species Obi-wan was somewhat acquainted with. His favorite diner back on Coruscant was run by a rotub Besalisk by the name of Dexter. Obi-Wan got on well with Dexter but the other he unfortunately knew was a Jedi master of similar age and rank as himself, Pong Krell.

Besalisks are known as a war-like race, their thick hide, tall and bulky stature and four articulate arms made for a naturally intimidating form. Their faces were toad like in appearance with bone plating scaling from their brow to the nape of their truck-like neck and a waddle hanging beneath a thin wide mouth full of sharp teeth.

Pong Krell is tall, even for a Besalisk, the Jedi standing at a massive 7 foot and 7 inches and where a normal one of his kind was barely taller than the average human, and where there normally would be girth and fat there was only corded masses of powerful muscles.

Jedi General Pong Krell was not a being to cross, that was putting aside his nasty attitude.

Even through his foot tall hologram Pong Krell seemed to look down at his fellow Jedi master, his inferior arms crossed at the small of his back and his superior arms across his broad chest. The Besalisk wore a pair of folding double bladed lightsabers on his belt and an everlasting sneer on his face as he address his human counterpart.

"General Kenobi," Krell ground out from between his teeth. "About time."

Obi-Wan decided to just ignore the irritable Jedi's remark. "You must have hailed me for a reason General Krell. What is it? Do you have an update on our quarry?"

The Besalisk clicked his tongue and stared off into some off screen distance. "Chasing this "Ghost Fleet" is a fool's errand. How do we even know if it truly exists anyway?"

Obi-Wan fought to keep a sneer of his own off his face. Perhaps Anakin is a bad influence on him?

"I mean how can we trust the word of some clueless civilians and clones?" Krell continued.

Obi-Wan's anger flared for a second before exhaling through his nose and bleeding his emotions out into the Force.

Careful to keep his voice level and calm Obi-Wan replied, "I have seen this destruction with my own eyes Master Krell, Do you doubt my word?"

Krell fell silent for a moment, stewing on Obi-wan's words with a frown.

Wanting to be rid of his unpleasant colleague Obi-Wan pushed on.

"When you do get an update do keep me in the loop Master Krell. Good Day."

The Besalisk huffed a reply and Obi-Wan cut the connection.

The Jedi Master dragged an armored hand down his tired face. Perhaps he should follow his own advice he gave Cody and get some rest himself.

Telling a nearby clone deck officer to wake him once they left hyperspace Obi-Wan exited the bridge and made his way from the neck of the Star Destroyer to his quarters in its belly a dozen floors down.

Obi-wan's quarters were spartan and small, more akin with a walk-in closet then a room, but it was his home away from home. A bed on the left side of the room with a thin mattress (it's an absolute killer on his back) with a desk and terminal against the far wall with a small closet and dresser drawers across from his bed.

Without bothering to strip out of his battle robes Obi-Wan fell onto his bed and fell asleep.

Though it had been several hours when the deck officer knocked on his quarters to wake him as asked Obi-Wan felt as if only minutes had passed. Dragging himself from his quarters he returned to the bridge with dark bags under his eyes.

Blinking away the drowsiness from his mind Obi-Wan drew up to the command console and brought up the galactic map then focused it on their position in the Middle Rim. He had only been studying the map for more than a few minutes when the console's receive call button flashed red and squawked out an urgent alarm.

_Is it Krell again? Who could be calling me now? _

Clicking the flashing red button Obi-Wan's heart seized in his chest at the sight of Padme's battered and bloodied form sputtering in and out of focus above the console. It seemed that the signal was weak and quickly growing fainter.

"Obi-Wan? I-I-I-I-Zzzzzt-" Padme's face dissolved for an alarming second before solidifying again. "I don't know if you can hear me, or if we really are alone out here."

The normally steadfast woman he had just talked to that morning looked on the verge of breaking. Panic gripped his heart but his Force-bond with Anakin remained strong, so his worst fear had not come to pass.

Yet.

Padme continued, her form fluctuating more frequently and her voice crackling and becoming more distorted.

"I believe we may have found your ghost fleet. Naboo is under heavy assault by a massive Separatist armada-ZzzZzt- -an't hold out for much longer."

Padme's voice fell fainter and fainter until it was barely a crackling whisper among a sea of static, but her words still struck him.

"Please… Help us Obi-Wan. You are our only hope."

Then the connected failed and Padme vanished.

The room was deathly silent as every officer and trooper on the bridge watched the Jedi Master stare at the space where his friend's love had disappeared.

For a moment it seemed the Jedi Master had fallen into shock, then he exploded into action, arms flying to point at his officers and his voice booming, involuntarily amplified by the force.

"Admiral set a course for Naboo! Cody, rally your men, tell them to get ready for a fight."

"Yessir!"

Obi-Wan spun around thrusting a finger at a flight officer with fire in his eyes. "Lieutenant! Get our fighters prepped for launch as soon as we drop out of hyperspace in the Naboo system."

The deck officer rushed off to the flight deck already speaking urgently into his headset.

Obi-Wan turned back to the command Console as the rest of the room instantly became a mad house of controlled chaos and bellowed over the din. "AND SOMEBODY GET GENERAL KRELL ON THE HORN!"

A few seconds later a grumbling and clearly agitated Pong Krell shimmered into being above the console and scowled down at Obi-Wan.

"What is it now-"

"Get your fleet ready to move immediately." Obi-Wan ordered, interrupting the Besalisk. "I just received a call informing us of a large separatist armada attacking a nearby system."

General Krell frowned at the news, his face turning grim. Obi-Wan's lips on the other hand split into a wolfish flash of teeth.

"We found our quarry, now to tighten the noose and end them once and for all."

**Onboard Venator Class Star Destroyer "Executor" **

General Krell cut the call with Master Kenobi and growled out orders to chart a course to Naboo then turned to a clone commando in blue striped phase 1 armor, dual DC-17 Blaster Pistols holstered at his hips.

"CT-7567, Ready the troops immediately and have them standby in the hangar."

"Yes General Krell!" The Commando snapped a brisk salute and sprinted from the bridge, unaware of the look of disgust from Krell that followed him.

General Krell had a particular distaste for the degenerate life-forms under his command. Clones were a tool, and instrument of war and nothing more. They were not people.

If only he could beat that into that useless apprentice of his…

Now that he thought of it, where is that snivelling little rat Togruta anyway?


	6. Episode 2: Into the Jaws Of the Enemy

Episode 2: Into the Jaw of the Enemy

The hospital aboard the Venator Class Star Destroyer "Executor" was packed beyond its intended capacity with clone troopers wounded from the previous engagements on Rattatak a few cycles ago. The campaign had been short but brutal with tens of thousands of casualties with more than 70% of them being troops under General Krell's command. The medical staff were overtaxed but still continued to struggle to keep their patients afloat with dogged determination. There were so many wounded that they were literally spilling out of the hospital ward and into the surrounding rooms and hallways, bound to bed-rest on gurneys set down on the floor.

Lost in the maze of groaning clone troopers and exhausted medics a tiny cloaked figure sat curled against the wall, an orange tinted hand resting on a trooper's arm. The trooper wore a conflicted expression as he spoke in a cautious and overly formal whisper, his tone sounding almost pleading.

"Thank you Commander, but really… I was only doing my job." The trooper tried, beseeching the small cloaked girl unconsciously kneading his arm with slender fingers. Much to his dismay the girl firmly shook her head, sending her hood fluttering around her montrals.

"No." The girl refuted plainly. "Jax, you…" The girl's eyes trailed to the trooper's abdomen, or rather what was left of it. A wide sterile bandage was the only thing preventing his insides from becoming outsides, though there was a noticeable dip where his right flank had been evaporated by a lucky AAT cannonshot tearing through his fighter cockpit.

"It's fine Commander. I'm still alive, right Sir?" Though he tried to put on a brave smile the girl felt the arm under her hand tremble.

"Right…"

Suddenly the cloaked girl's back arched as if she were in pain, a sickly jolt squelching through her Force-bond as if someone had shoved a Sand-Slug down her throat. Choking down her fear the girl swallowed thickly to rid herself of the phantom sensation ghosting down her neck and squared her shoulders.

"I… I gotta go Jax. Master Krell is looking for me." The girl said in a faint voice. The clone frowned, clearly seeing the distress in the girl's expression but he felt utterly helpless.

The girl rose slowly, reluctantly as if she had just been ordered to march to her own execution. As the passed Jax grabbed her wrist, halting her for a moment.

"Command…" The trooper's expression broke a little seeing the fear in the girl's wide blue eyes. "...Ashoka," He corrected himself. The girl flinched at the sound of her name, but at least a little more life seemed to return to her fearful eyes. "Good luck." Jax said.

A small, albeit shaky smirk pulled at the edges of Ashoka's lips. "I don't need luck." She gently pulled her arm free and Jax let her go, still uneasy but reassured that his commander still has some fight and fire in her.

Ahsoka's weak show of confidence crumbled a few steps down the hall, the trembling in her legs worsened and her hands grew cold and clammy. Taking a deep breath Ahsoka drew on her lessons as a youngling in the Jedi Temple and tried to calm her mind, bleeding her roiling emotions out into the force, with mixed results... She was never very good at letting go.

With a rigid gaunt she found her way to the command bridge, the apprehension in her chest rising with every reluctant step. The command bridge airlock unsealed with a heavy thud and slid apart. Waiting behind them stood the towering General Krell scowling down at her with wrath in his eyes.

"Apprentice," Master Krell ground out between clenched teeth. Despite her own rebellious glare Ahsoka flinched from the venom in her Master's voice. "Ready your fighter. I will have you lead your quadron into battle."

Terror and doubt lurched up Ahsoka's throat. Before she could think to stop herself she exclaimed. "But M-Master I just lost almost my whole Squadron on Rattatak! I-I-I can't… I…"

Her quaking voice trailed to a whimper as the towering four-armed Jedi Master drew up to his full height, easily overshadowing his frail Apprentice. Taking no small amount of vindicated pleasure from the girl's horrified expression Krell brought his head down until they were eye to eye. He reached inside her hood with one arm and almost lovingly caressed the Togruta girl's hard montral, his touch sending terrified shivers of revulsion down the girl's body.

"Now, now my young Apprentice," Krell cooed, the sound akin to sandpaper over rusted steel. "Heed no more of your attention for these animals. Clones are a tool of war, nothing more."

General Krell half hoped the rebellious Togruta to speak up on the clones' behalf like she had done in the past. This time though she swallowed her protests and tried to pull away from his touch. Since Krell had finally "broken her in" during one of their private training sessions however the weak little rat had put up less and less resistance as time wore on.

Krell's frog-like lips curled into a snarl. _How boring… _

Krell snorted and cruelly curled his fingers into the young Togruta's head-horn, grinning at the agony on his apprentice's face. Ahsoka bit back a cry of pain and fought to keep her knees from buckling beneath her, struggling to avoid showing weakness in front of her hated master and the audience of bridge officers watching her anguish.

Krell reveled in the fear and helpless rage that poured from this pathetic excuse for a padawan Yoda had thrust upon him as she struggled in his grasp. So absorbed was he in his musings that it wasn't until one of the several dozen witnesses aboard the bridge with him coughed that he realized that he was being watched.

His mood ruined General Krell sneered down at his apprentice and whipped her head away with the intent on throwing her to the ground. Somehow the nimble and defiant girl spun with his sudden throw and kept her feet, although on shaky legs. Though a small victory Ahsoka felt a petty but very thorough satisfaction at the incoherent rage overtaking her master's face.

With barely contained murder in his beady eyes Krell snarled through his teeth, "Get. to. your. fighter."

Ahsoka didn't need to be told twice as she swiftly left the bridge amidst every eye in the room on her retreating figure. As the blast doors slid open a sudden second wind of courage rose in her breast, a feeling she had forgotten.

She couldn't help herself and looked over her shoulder at the seething Baselisk and remarked coyly, " Aren't you going to wish me luck, Master?" without meaning to, she spat his title with a venom that even surprised herself.

This only served to further enrage the four-armed General as he bellowed back, "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!"

Ahsoka laughed a bit hysterically as she made her escape from the bridge to her fighter in the hangar below, knowing full-well that she could very well be running straight to her death. She almost hoped she did, because if she did somehow manage to survive this battle Ahsoka didn't really know what she was going to do when she faced her Master when this was all over...

Blowing up Vulture Droids is a lot like working on a speeder Anakin realized. Fix one problem and a dozen more take its place. Still he lives for the thrill of battle and mechanic work is his first love.

_Am I actually a masochist? _

Anakin chuckled dryly to himself as he feathered the trigger, his laser cannons spitting out a short staggered burst of green plasma that ripped through a wing of Vulture Droids without a single bolt going wide.

Swinging right to avoid the trio of balls of fire and shrapnel Anakin dove back through the Separatist formation, his senses alight in the force, guiding him through the chaotic storm of enemy and friendly laser fire alike. It seemed as if he were untouchable, unconcerned with the ferocious space battle as he danced among deadly machines of war and dying men.

A pair of Vulture Droids cornered an N-1 and slagged the yellow starfighter under a hail of angry red laser-fire, a bolt burning a hole through the brave pilot's head. Breaking off their pursuit as what was left of their victim spattered against a Providence-Class dreadnought's shields the droids zeroed in on an oddly shaped gray Naboo starfighter tearing through a handful of Hyena bombers with unnatural accuracy.

Anakin sensed his new dance partners a breath before Artoo twittered a warning through his headset.

"Yeah, I see 'em. Let's so these bolts-for-brains how a real pilot flies!"

Flicking his N-2F sideways Anakin nudged his unpainted starfighter between a Munificent-Class Frigate's hull and external armor, clearing the gaps through the dura-steel support beams with effortless grace, causing his mindless pursuers to crash into their own frigate's superstructure.

Another laugh bubbled up from his chest as he fanned a bank of turrets with laser fire and cleared the frigate's maze of support beams just as the guns went up in flames, causing a beautiful chain reaction to nearly rip the Munificent-Class frigate in half in a glorious implosion of fire and shearing metal.

This is what Anakin lived to do, flying is his first true love, one that began as a slave child when he slipped into his podracer and imagined a galaxy of stars before him instead of harsh sands.

A wizen voice crackled over his headset, drawing him from his elation.

[This is Captain Antilles of LOD Array 13. All surviving defenders in sector 145-Alpha-30 through 150-Delta-60 fall back to my position for regroup.]

Anakin had been keeping one eye on the tiny defense station as the invading Separatist armada spread out and closed in around the planet. The LOD array was only equipped to repel small pirate craft, not militarized frigates and larger destroyers. Even a single Munificent-Class Frigate from the hundred-odd number in the attacking fleet carried enough armament to outgun the small station's meager defenses. The Array's only advantage was range and accuracy, the weapon platform's semi-stationary position in orbit allowed the cannons to nail nimble droid fighters with relative ease, but the sheer number of enemy fighters overwhelmed what few numbers they had.

LOD Array 13's guns quickened their barrage against the oncoming swarm pursuing the fleeing pilots. Green lasers seasoned with occasional blue ion bolts lit up the darkness of space like a shower of falling stars. The swarm of droid fighters crumpled, Hyena bombers detonated in fiery spirals of plasma and shrapnel as vulture droids had their wings clipped and sent spinning wildly into the void, often times crashing into one another before imploding. Anakin threw his Starfighter's nose around and came to a stop just outside the command bridge topping on the station. He watched the last of the N-1's limp behind the station, a huge bite taken out of its left thruster. The N-1's compromised engine puked flaming ozone before it gave a final valiant sputtering heave to get its pilot to safety before dying, the hull free floating until a recovery crew was dispatched to retrieve it.

A gut-wrenching few dozen of the original several hundred N-1's that had first entered the fray escaped from the fight, the vast majority of the survivors had scorch marks marring their elegant yellow frames and more than a few were belching smoke and fire. Anakin made a quick head-count and felt the bottom of his stomach drop out.

Less than fifty pilots in outdated flying showpieces masquerading as starfighters in varying degrees of debilitating damage against a horde of planet-slagging warships and an army of soulless killer robots. Fantastic.

Anakin knew defending Naboo from orbit was a foolish endeavor. Their only hope was to grind the CIS's momentum to a halt by forcing the droid army into a war of attrition on the surface. For them to have any chance of winning was to buy their forces on the ground enough time to shore up their defenses.

His mind made up Anakin punched in a private frequency on the comms unit and keyed his headset. The line crackled for a moment then Captain Antilles' strong and aged baritone rumbled over the airwaves.

[This line is for diplomatic emergencies only. Identify yourself by name and station.]

Smirking to himself the former Jedi answered. "This is Anakin Skywalker and my station is currently floating in a prototype starfighter just outside your viewport watching our collective doom heading straight for us."

Anakin bit back a grin as the frizzled Captain on the other end blistered, [This is no time for jokes young man-!] The Captain's sudden pause was more audible then his shouting. [Wait, Skywalker? As in Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, the Hero of the Republic?]

Anakin's grin vanished like smoke as a feeling akin to having a bucket of cold water dumped over his head sobered him right up. How did this random captain know who he is?

_I have a bad feeling about this..._

"I'm not a Je-! Wait, back up. I'm no "hero" of anybody! Where did you hear about me?"

[From the Grand Army of the Republic's recruitment reels, Master Jedi. Your name is everywhere. Did you not know?]

Anakin scowled. It seems he wasn't as through with the Republic or the Jedi Order as he had thought.

"Speaking of the Republic. When can we expect reinforcements from them?"

[... About that. There are no reinforcements.]

"...What?' Anakin felt as if the Captain had reached through his headset and gut-punched him. "Why?!"

[Within minutes upon arrival the Seppies had bombed and disabled our deep-space transmitters. We are cut off until we can relay a message through other channels. Best case scenario, the republic finds out in three cycles and we get reinforcements in a week's time.]

"Sithspit…" He hissed to himself before addressing the Captain. "Captain Antilles, we are on our last legs out here. As it stands we won't last more than a few minutes, half an hour at best before we are slaughtered to a man. I suggest a surgical strike against the enemy command ship attacking this Sector to disrupt their advance then retreat to the surface."

[Agreed Master Jedi.] Anakin's scowl darkened at the Captain's address, the title a nasty reminder of what he had _thought _ he had finally gotten away from. Betrayal stabbed at his heart over Obi-Wan keeping this from him. He loved his friend though, he had to have had a good reason...

Captain Antilles was blissfully unaware as he continued, [You wish to lead this surgical strike I take it?]

Anakin shook himself from his darker thoughts and agreed. "Yes I do. I will only bring a squadron of five undamaged fighters with me while anyone else that is still combat-worthy harrasses the enemy's forward line."

[Sounds like a plan Master Jedi. I actually have a bit of good news. If you can keep those clankers busy for long enough a fresh wave of N-1's are flying up from the surface to aid in the orbital defense. Do you think you can manage it?]

Anakin felt a small amount of weight lift from his shoulders. The more of the enemy they can destroy up in orbit means the less resources the Droid Army can utilize on their assault on the ground.

"However long you need Captain, consider it doubled. Skywalker out."

Anakin switched his frequency back to Sector command and sat back in his seat as Captain Antilles' voice droned in his ear, organizing the surviving pilots into their new squadrons and ordering the critically damaged fighters that can't make the trip down to the surface to dock on the station for stop-gap repairs. All the while Array 13's guns thundered in a rapid cadence, splashing green and blue light across the former Jedi's weary face.

Despite their efforts though Anakin knew that they were doing little to stem the tide of Separatist Fighters descending on Naboo's near-defenseless populace. Then his thoughts turned to Padme and he found himself breathless, suffocated with fear at the thought of her on the other side of the world ground into bloody chunks by a bomb, or a lucky laser reducing her to ash, or being crushed by fall rubble, or, or~!

Artoo twittered in concern, yanking Anakin back from the brink of his downward spiral. Anakin choked down the neausiating fear and forced out a weak smile. "Thanks little buddy. Remind me to give you a nice oil bath next time we don't have an army of your angry cousins breathing down our necks." The hardy and loyal astromech happily squawked his approval and then beeped, telling him to get a move on.

Anakin chuckled at his co-pilot's snark, the familiar banter with his mechanical friend easing the turmoil in his heart. The former Jedi's short reprieve was interrupted when he heard a young comms officer say his name.

[Master Skywalker, I got three fresh pilots from the R&D department asking for you. You know them?]

Anakin felt an eyebrow raise on its own accord in surprise, a habit he picked up from Obi-Wan when the older man wished to convey his disapproval and irritation… or when he felt the need to be particularly annoying.

"Yes I know them. Patch them through."

The Comms Officer did so without another word and Anakin snatched his headset off his head with a hiss of pain. Even with the headset held at arm's length he could still clearly hear three familiar voices bickering over the channel like chittering porgs fighting over a shiny.

[Why do I gotta come too? I'm just a racer! C'mon Conner, you know I ain't cut out for this!] A Feminine voice whined.

A deeper, older male answered with a teasing tone, [Aela, you got a crash course in basic combat maneuvers, same as everyone else flying for R&D. Quit yer belly-achin'. 'Asides, Skywalker had flown one of these into combat without a lick of training as a ten-year-old and he was the one who killed the droid command ship during the Trade Fed's blockade. You ain't got no excuse!]

Aela groaned in defeat sparking Conner and one other, a gungan by his distinct yuk-yuking sound, to break out into laughter.

[Well, maybe there's a bright side to this?] Aela asked with a tiny glimmer of hope. [Maybe it's not as bad as we think and we just snatch up the good ol' Master Jedi and we can NOT fly straight into an armada of killer droids and instead go home?]

Anakin watched out of his viewport as three N-1's broke from the atmosphere. Cracking a grin he keyed his mic, "Or how about we DO fly straight into an armada of killer droids and boot them in the motivator instead?"

[Anakin!] Aela barked. The female bothan sounded relieved, the terror that sharpened the edge of her voice relaxed a touch.

[Itsa good to hear that yousa alive Mastah Jedi.] Gen-Dan greeted.

"Was there any doubt?" Anakin laughed.

[Well…] Conner drew out the 'L' as he pondered the question. [Considering the last time Droids were on Naboo I was more expecting to see you flying down hallways again.]

"That was one time!" Anakin exclaimed, "Besides, it all worked out then. Right?"

[Can we expect a repeat performance?] Conner asked.

"Maybe." Anakin replied coyly. "It depends on how good your flying is."

Anakin saw the N-1 on the right jerk to the right suddenly before correcting itself. [Wut?] Aela squeaked.

[It means we are comin' with him to zorch some space-clankers.] Conner said, leading the trio to a stop a few dozen yards from Anakin's Starfighter. He could see the older human in his pilot helmet throw him a salute and say, [Ain't that right Master Jedi?]

"That's Gold Leader to you Gold 1." Anakin threw back. "Gen-Dan, You're Gold 2. Aela, Gold 3. We are getting two more to our number then once Captain Antilles gives the green light we're throwing a Hail Mary and a dozen proton torpedoes down the Droid Commander's throat. Any questions?"

[Why am I a part of this plan?] Aela asked. [I'm not a fighter pilot, I'm just a space-racer!]

"Take a look around you Aela." Anakin replied with a little more heat than he had intended to the smoking N-1 hulls floating around them. "You are one of the only ones left who can still fly straight, let alone run combat maneuvers blasting droids." The Bothan swallowed audibly over the channel but held her peace. Anakin made eye-contact with her through their windshields and Aela gave him a tiny nod. She's still terrified but she's on board with the plan. It would have to be enough.

"Any other questions?"

[Just one.] Conner piped up. [No-holds-barred brass-balls-to-the-wall full-throttle don't-let-go-of-the-trigger-even-after-your-spaced-and-one-with-the-force Maximum Effort?]

"Damn straight." Anakin replied. His comms console chirped, showing two more undamaged N-1's joining his squadron.

"Gold Squadron, Roll-call and fall in." As he half-listened to the voices over the comm channel Anakin wheeled his N-2F and aimed his star-fighter right at the heart of the approaching armada as Aela, Conner, Gen-Dan, and the other two pilots fell into an arrowhead formation behind him. Once everyone was in place Anakin keyed over to Captain Antilles' channel.

"Captain, we are ready and waiting."

[You're green to go Master Skywalker. Good Hunting and May the Force be With You.]

"And you too Captain. Skywalker out."

Switching channels Anakin rallied his Squadron with a fire in his tone and the Force surging wildly in his heart.

"Let's go Ladies! Follow me! For Naboo! For the Republic!"

[For Naboo! For the Republic!] Even Artoo Squawked his own battlecry, adding to Gold Squadron's fervor.

A maniacal grin split unbidden across Anakin's face as he gunned the throttle, leading the charge down the center of the Separatist formation as scores of tiny yellow Starfighters peeled off behind him.

They were tiny pinpricks in the darkness, riding against giant monsters from the shadows of the void.

Anakin felt his hackles raise as the warships grew larger and larger, but still even when he knew they were in range of their cannons the droids did not open fire. The tension buzzed in the air, thick enough to cut with a vibro-blade as the charging pilots waited for the first shot they knew was coming.

Then a sudden flash of red from a frigate's bow gun, then the star-studded sky was tinged fiery crimson and droid fighters poured from their hangars and descended upon the brave Naboo pilots like a wave upon a shore.

Anakin ignored all of this as he slammed the accelerator until the thrusters were in the red, his bow aimed straight at the ornate Providence-Class Dreadnought in the rear of the formation. The rest of Gold Squadron did the same, their guns singing and thrusters howling a vicious tune as they willingly followed the Former Jedi as he led them in a dance of death straight into the jaws of the enemy.


	7. Episode 3: Take My Fear Away

**Episode 3: Take My Fear Away...**

[Contact right behind you Blue 1. Left! Bank Left!-]

[-Frigate flanking your 9 by 12 Gray Squadron. Watch it, Watch it!]

[T-They're on my tail! I-I can't Shake -AuGh!-ZZzzz-]

[White 3? White 3, where are you?! I can't find my Squadron. Fark! They're dead! They're all dead!-]

[ This is Violet 2! My stabilizers are out! I'm going down! Kriff! I don't wanna die! I don't wanna-! -ZzzzZZz-]

[Blue 1, you're smoking. Where's your shields? Blue 1? Amanda! What are you doing?!]

[Tell my family… Tell them I did my best. FOR THE REPUBLIC!]

With one final valiant pull on her control stick Blue 1 aimed the flaming husk that was once her N-1 straight at the bridge of a Munificent-Class Frigate, let go and relaxed in her seat, her eyes closing in acceptance right before impact. The brave young woman died when her starfighter crumpled and twisted as it plowed through the transparisteel viewports and the hapless droid command crew on the other side. Seconds later the N-1's compromised proton torpedo magazine detonated.

Though she would not witness it herself Blue 1's final act set a chain reaction through the already devastated Frigate right into its reactor core. The warship exploded from the inside out, escaping atmo, ignited fuel, and onboard ammunition fed the incredible detonation that tore the frigate to shreds. Sheared superstructure and flaming debris smashed into unlucky fighters and neighboring frigates in the Separatist formation, causing further devastation in the droid ranks and eliminating an entire division of droid ground forces in the process.

Captain Antilles bore stoic witness all of this from the bridge of LOD Array 13, his hands folded at the small of his back, his white officer regalia pressed and pristine as his posture and demeanor. Despite staring down an attack force many thousand times beyond his capability to match the older gentleman remained unfazed and calm, even as he listened to his brave pilots' dying screams over the comms channel.

Even from several hundred klicks away from the battle he could see the tiny yellow pin pricks that were his pilots wading through a sea of crimson laser fire and clashing with a veritable horde of droid starfighters. But with every swoop, roll, and dive one more yellow light was snuffed out, one more life gone in a tiny flash of fire.

"Sir," One of the bridge officers, a young man just a few years older than his own son turned from his console with a grave expression. " The CIS armada is spreading out across Naboo's orbit."

"They are netting us in." Captain Antilles responded easily, he had fully expected their invaders to do so. In their place it would have been what he had done. "Forming a blockade to cut off anyone fleeing from the planet. Civilians included. Keep me updated in their movement Lieutenant."

"Yes Sir."

Antilles turned to his comms console and broadcasted over to his fellow Captains heading the other LOD Arrays stationed around Naboo. Their Comms Network had been crippled in the initial attack but if he was lucky someone would hear him. "All stations, all stations, this is Captain Antilles of LOD Array 13. Be advised the CIS fleet is fanning out to box us in. Beware of flanking enemy elements."

Cutting off the connection Antilles barked out a command to shift the array's cannons onto a damaged frigate closest to his station and turned his steely gaze down to his command console. Displayed there were the remaining number of his squadrons- and casualties. Even as he swept across the few dozen of his surviving forces one of their number blinked out, and the casualty counter ticked up.

387.

A steep price, an incredibly steep price. Every single number that added to that 387 was a life, a person, one of his people that he had ordered to their deaths- and they were all on his head.

Such is the burden of command.

Antilles turned his attention to one Squadron still in possession of all its members, one headed by the odd Jedi Knight that was for some reason gallivanting around his planet in a prototype N-1 rather than fighting on the frontlines where the GAR's propaganda reels implied.

Captain Antilles didn't know what to make of the situation and truth be told right now he couldn't care less, He's just thanking his lucky stars he had a Jedi out here at all. Never mind the Chancellor's "Hero of the Republic" himself. Perhaps with the Jedi's Chosen One they had a chance after all…

The station shuddered as the first of the Separatist's cannons came within their range. Captain Antilles knew time was running out. If Skywalker couldn't take out the fleet commander LOD Array 13 would be overwhelmed and Antilles himself and every single man and woman under his command were very likely to be added to the final casualty count.

Taking a seat Captain Antilles opened a direct channel to Gold Leader. "Master Jedi, how close are you to the target? At this rate it won't matter that reinforcements from the surface are coming, because we won't be here to greet them."

"Yeah, yeah! I'm working on it!" Anakin cut the connection and banked a hard right, barely skimming over a smattering of crimson laser fire. Gen-Dan swung behind him and answered with a burst of green death of his own, pulverizing the attacking droid's starboard wing and sending it into a tailspin into the surrounding crossfire.

Anakin centered himself as he led Gold Squadron in a tight arrow formation under a Providence-Class Dreadnought. Anakin brought his N-2F within spitting distance of the massive capital ship's underbelly in an effort to avoid the worst of the laser fire from the defense towers projecting from the hull.

"Stick to my exhaust and stay as close to the ship as you can without touching the shields." Anakin warned.

Conner's amused tenor crackled over Gold Squadron's comm channel, [Just a few feet higher and we wouldn't have to worry about the shields, we'll be flying down hallways!]

A collective chuckle rattled over the comm channel, easing some of the tension, even as they dodged death by a hairsbreadth. Anakin felt the tension in his shoulders relax a fraction. He hadn't realized how much he had missed mid-combat banter.

They followed the length of the dreadnought's hull and once they cleared it's stern they spread out again, whipping by a swarm of vulture droids that had spilled from a Lucrehulk Carrier a few dozen clicks away. As enemy laser fire poured in among their ranks Anakin urged his Squadron onward and gunned the throttle to escape the barrage. A few lucky shots found his fighter but the worst of the hot plasma splashed against his shields, only leaving a few faint scorch marks on his unpainted hull.

Artoo squealed a frightened warning as the cockpit's dashboard turned an ugly red. Anakin clenched his teeth. The Shields! The power core can't handle the heavy combat load, the blasted shields were failing!

"Artoo, reroute power from the Auxiliary and pull everything from the automated stabilizers and pour it into the deflector shields."

[What's wrong Skywalker?] Aela asked over the channel. She sounded extremely stressed, as if she was speaking through clenched teeth. This was one helluva first taste of combat for the star-racer, but so far she wasn't dead yet so she must be doing something right.

"Nothing to worry about, I'm fine." Anakin could instantly feel his fighter's control grow looser as Artoo deactivated the flight assist and stabilizer systems, causing a whole new set of red lights on his dashboard to light up.

"I'm fine. I got this." He reassured himself under his breath as he wrangled the rebellious starfighter back under his control. "It's okay. I'm okay. I got this." Breathing deeply into the Force Anakin tried to bleed out his fear, with mixed results. Oh how he wished he had listened to Obi-Wan's lessons in meditation better as a padawan.

Their Force-Bond suddenly flared to life and pulsed like fire, reassurance rolled over him like heat from a flame, pushing back the encroaching anxiety and fear.

Anakin didn't know how and he didn't know when but he knew Obi-Wan was coming and he would be here soon.

His breathing came easier, his fear was pulled adrift into the Force, leaving the former Jedi in an afterglow of hope and steely determination.

Anakin centered his Starfighter, his control becoming delicate, intentional, and natural. He grinned. "I got this."

[Gold Leader! We got company right on our tails!] Gold 5 exclaimed from the rear.

"Take evasive action!"

Anakin cut a wild roll and dipped down towards a Munificent Frigate firing up at him from a few klicks below as several wings of Vulture Droids whizzed through the space Gold Squadron had been a second before. The droid fighters split off into 2's and 3's to pursue the members of Gold Squadron, forcing them further apart.

Anakin spun and swooped through the incoming spread of laser fire coming up from the Frigate and the Vulture Droids chasing him. Artoo protested his reckless flying with an indignant squawk.

"Well next time I'll take a nap in the cockpit and you can pilot!" Anakin shot back. He suddenly cut his forward thrust and pitched his fighter upward and re-engaged the engines, pulling off a 90 degree turn at a brain squeezing 1200 mph. He pulled his fighter from a head-on collision with the Munificent Frigate's main structure with meer yards to spare.

His pursuers were not so lucky. The brainless droids splintered into squashed wrecks against their own Frigate's shields with an amusing thump followed closely by a pop as they exploded into flakes of fiery shrapnel.

Anakin fought the black of unconsciousness creeping in from the edges of his vision from his insane maneuver. Humans were not built to take that many G's all at once like that. The only reason he wasn't a skin-bag of force-sensitive goop in the cockpit right now was because of his super-human Force enhancements. Tilting to the right to avoid smacking into a turret tower Anakin hugged the Munificent Frigate's hull, tapping his laser cannons at important looking bits exposed beyond the shields.

His vision cleared as he ripped apart the Munificent Frigate's comms array and accelerated away. Once he was outside the range of its anti-fighter batteries Anakin keyed his mic. "Gold Squadron regroup."

[Kind of busy boss!] Gold 4 called out. Anakin spotted his N-1 zipping around a passing Recusant Light Destroyer, desperately bobbing and weaving in front of a pair of vulture droids spraying a relentless spread of lasers to blast the brave man to slag.

[Anakin, I-I can't shake them!] Aela cried, her N-1 was pock-marked with several scorch marks, her left engine was also dragging a trail of black smoke. [Durking Nerf Herders got my stabilizers! Help! Help me please!]

Anakin gunned the throttle, making for the Recusant Destroyer. "Just hold on Aela, you're going to be just fine. Come over to my position. Gold 4, once you clear the Destroyer's hull dive straight down and keep going."

[Roger that Gold Leader.]

[Kriff! Okay, Okay! I'm coming in hot!]

Anakin grinned despite the deep seated terror in the female Bothan's usual teasing big-sistery demeanor. Hearing the normally composed Aela swear like a sailor was a novelty and perfect ammunition to throw back in her face if they all survive this.

Gold 4 dove down just as Aela's smoking N-1 made it within Anakin's range. The former Jedi swept a beautiful arc around to the Bothan's pursuers and feathered the trigger, shredding the droids to stardust. Gold 4 and his entourage zipped passed Aela a second later and whether by reflex, instinct, or total accident she clenched the trigger, her cannons singing. Some of the green bolts went wide but her stream of lasers still struck home, punching holes through the unshielded droid fighters and reducing them to scrap metal.

"Good shooting Aela." Anakin chuckled, swinging in beside her battered N-1. Gold 4 join them in a 3-man wing formation. The former Jedi could just barely see into his fellow test pilot's cockpit and her trembling, shocked expression.

[I…. I did it! Kriff yeah! Oh my stars that… that felt amazing!]

[Thanks for that Gold 3.] Gold 4 added, amused by her antics.

[Whew! I-I can't believe I'm alive!]

"Let's keep you that way then." Anakin quipped. "How's your left thruster?"

[Right, right. My R-3 unit patched the damage. She'll hold.]

"Good. Gold 1, what's your status?"

Conner sounded out of breath but hale, [Alive at least Master Jedi. Gold 2 and Gold 5 are mopping up the last of the droids on our tail.]

"We won't stay unmolested for long. Continue running fighter interference. Gold 3, Gold 4 you're with me. You two stay right on my tail. We are making a run for the Command ship!"

[You got it boss.]

[Roger Gold Leader.]

[Do I really have to be the one to fly right up into the face of the ship with the biggest guns?]

" 'Fraid so Gold 3. Where's your sense of danger?"

[Still on the ground. Where I will be staying permanently once we get back.] Aela added dryly. [You can keep this spinning about killer flying droids nonsense. By the way Skywalker, just so you know, spinning is not flying.]

"But it's a good trick!" Anakin laughed as they got into formation and bee-lined towards the massive Providence Dreadnought steadily eating up more and more of his windshield.

[Brace for flak. The Command ship spotted us.]

Anakin let Gold 4's warning go unanswered because before he could reply the previously silent anti-fighter turrets zeroed in on their approach vector and unleashed a blinding barrage of crimson laser fire.

"Shields to double front. Stay close people!"

Anakin took advantage of the N-2F's improved maneuverability to weave through a maze of death. The rear thruster in the split tail of the starfighter allowed him to pull off impossible turns and tight rolls like an acrobat on a tumble mat. He didn't so much as dodge then dance among the crimson lasers raining down on him. His Fore-bond with Obi-Wan sang with a scalding light, that set his blood aflame with righteous fury.

These soulless monsters come to his world? His home?! No, they will not find any mercy from him.

The Command ship's blue and gray hull rapidly devoured the former Jedi's windshield with the Ship's bridge growing larger by the millisecond.

_Just a bit closer._

Anakin's characteristic smirk hardened into a thin grim line as his thumbs tightened on the torpedo release and his targeting computer ate the countdown until he had a lock.

A revolting slithering glee lunged out from the Force, oily tentacles of hate and agony snagged onto Anakin's Force presence biting and thrashing for purchase on his very being.

Moving more out of some primal animal instinct than conscious thought Anakin broke off his flight path and dove to the left, his fighter's engines screaming from the strain out of the way of a flurry of crimson laser fire.

Gold 4 wasn't so lucky. Several of the shots suckerpunched him broadside, hot plasma cutting through his cockpit like butter and shearing his flesh to his upholstery. Aela and Gen-Dan cried out in horror as the dead man's flaming fighter spiraled wildly and spattered across the command ship's shields.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Anakin screamed, his voice hoarse with rage as Gold 4's killer tore out of nowhere and blurred through Gold Squadron's broken formation after Anakin.

[W-what is that?!] Aela screeched.

[Does it matter?!] Conner growled, anger and surprise bleeding out into his normally calm voice. [Kriffing shoot it down!]

Anakin stole a quick look behind him at his attacker, a bizarre red and bronze eye-shaped cockpit with outboard laser cannons on the edges of its two protruding solar sails. It was unlike anything Anakin had ever seen, but the style reminded him of Geonosian fighters, and the ugly Force Presence that rolled off of the spacecraft reminded him of a watered down Count Dooku.

"Gold Squad, retreat and regroup. This one is mine!" Anakin snarled, baring his teeth.

[But what'ta 'boutta commanda ship'n?] Gen-Dan asked.

"Forget the blasted command ship!" Anakin replied, his breath short from his violent and wild flying. "It won't matter if you're all dead!"

[Skywalker, we are not leaving you to that.. Thing!] Conner snapped.

Fed up with his squadron's stubborn refusal to follow orders (and ignoring that little voice that sounded an awful lot like Obi-Wan laughing at him) Anakin roared, "You are not leaving me! This thing is a Sith! Now fucking GO!"

Zoning out his Squadron Anakin's whole focus was fighting back this Sith's ugly force presence and their dance of death.

"Catch me if you can Darkside Whore." He snickered and cranked his acceleration to the floor.

This mystery Sith attacker was a terrifying pilot, for every sharp turn and breath-stealing maneuver he pulled off the hutt-rutting slimo was right there on his exhaust port guns coughing crimson death all the while.

Still, this Sith may be a formidable pilot but the sky was Anakin's home, everyone else was just visiting.

Spinning away from another spray of laser fire Anakin cut a razor sharp dive into the outer rigging of a Recusant Destroyer's hull, flying fearlessly into the enemies guns. Anakin felt a smile pull at his lips at the ripple of frustrated rage surging from the Sith pilot through the Force.

"Hey Artoo, is he still right on my tail?" Artoo twittered an affirmative and Anakin's smile turned into a feral grin. "Good, well let's see how he likes this!"

Zipping up across the Destroyer's hull with the Sith fighter breathing down his neck Anakin turned his attention onto the Destroyer's exposed starboard fuel cells and loosed a pair of proton torpedoes at near point blank range and immediately yanked the N2-F up and out of the way.

The Sith pilot's reflexes may be unnaturally quick but not even they could dodge a concussion wave from an exploding fuel cell at a couple dozen yards away. Anakin watched with grim satisfaction as the Sith fighter was swallowed by the ball of fire as he peeled away.

"I think I got that rat bastard! Gold Squadron form up! We're making another run on the Command ship!"

A ragged cheer crackled over the channel as Gold Squadron swiftly regrouped with Anakin's fighter, but as they advanced on the Command Ship their victory proved short-lived.

Anakin felt his fighter shudder as space warped and cracked with the sound of a whip. Artoo squealed a warning at the same time as the former Jedi saw a flotilla of CIS warships drop out of hyperspace around the Command Ship- and Gold Squadron.

"Well…. Shit."

Flak began to pour in amongst Gold Squadron's ranks rattling off their shields and scoring across their armor as Anakin led them into a desperate charge across the final stretch of open space, their only hope was to use the Command Ship as cover against the surrounding flak cannons. Vulture Droids spilled from their hangars in droves and descended like a tidal wave towards Naboo and Anakin's Squadron.

Anakin flinched away from a lucky laser bolt scoring across his armor scant inches from his face. His Dashboard let out a shrill squeal of alarm and went red as his failing shields stuttered from the impact.

"Tighten up, stay together. Shields to double front and don't stop shooting!" Anakin's jaw ached from clenching his teeth as he snapped out his orders and fanned down a trio of droid fighters with a short blast of cannonfire.

[I don't think we're gonna make it Boss.] Conner commented, blasting another droid out of the sky banking right around the flaming wreckage.

Anakin didn't reply, his grip on the controls tightened so hard his flesh-and-bone knuckles popped.

He couldn't see a way out of this, a soulless army on all sides fire and destruction trailing in its wake and not another living, breathing being in sight. Anakin was vaguely aware of the light in his Force Presence flickering like a candle against a hurricane as cold dread consumed what little of his hope remained, all that was left in his heart was a frigid and oddly calm acceptance.

A pair of Munificent Frigates advanced past the Command ship towards the lone Naboo Squadron, their flak turrets belching crimson hellfire.

Anakin watched with an odd sense of detachment as one of the frigates angled away, aiming to broadside the flagging Squadron.

_I'm so, so sorry Padme, I love you. _

He rested back in his seat, dimly aware of his fighter shuddering from another massive object dropping out of hyperspace as the frigate's starboard cannons turned on him and let loose.

Anakin's calm turned to confusion when the frigate lurched to the side, its guns stuttered silent in surprise as if suckerpunched. His confusion flared to awed exhileration when the frigates was ripped apart down the middle in a brilliant flash of fire and escaping atmo.

A storm of vibrant blue turbolasers ripped through the frigate-turned-fireball and tore into its fellow like a wolf into an exposed neck. The frigate's armor and shields buckled under the monstrous salvo until it joined its twin in the mechanical afterlife as a massive spearhead shaped hull ravaged the frigate's fiery corpse asunder with terrifying ease.

Unaware of the impending doom drawing up behind them the swarm of vulture droids continued to bear down on the exposed members of Gold Squadron with a mindless fury. A tiny blue blur broke through the smoke and debris and loosed a salvo of viridescent light, rending a wing of Vulture Droids to scrap.

[What in blazes is that?!] Conner cried, the older pilot gaping in astonishment at the warship barreling out of the remnants of its vanquished foe even as he dodged and returned fire.

Elation and hope bloomed bright in Anakin's chest stirring a heady laugh deep from his chest as the blue blur twisted away and right behind it half a dozen tri-winged starfighters dove from the smoke and descended into the fight, their wing mounted cannons blazing hot blue fire.

"That was Jedi Starfighter," He explained with a giddy tilt to his voice, pointing to the blue blur dancing across the fire and chaos. He gestured to the capital ship turning its main turbolaser batteries on the CIS fleet. "and that that is a Venator Star Destroyer. It's the Republic!"

The Star Destroyer leveled its eight dual turbolaser batteries and unleashed a punishing salvo onto the surrounding enemy ranks, even when outnumbered by Munificent Class Frigates 3-1. The tri-winged starfighters -Torrent V-19's- flared out in practiced formations, shredding Vulture droids with extreme prejudice and cutting a swath through their lines.

For a moment a broad grin spread across Anakin's face as he bore witness to the orchestrated devastation until a biting, gravelly sneer rumbled over the Comm Channel.

[This is Jedi General Pong Krell of the Grand Army of the Republic. Who is in charge of this defense?]

[This is Captain Antielles of the Naboo Self-Defense Force. I am in charge of this sector. Welcome to Naboo, General, such as it is.] Captain Antielles replied.

[Spare me your pleasantries Captain. They are a waste of my time.] General Krell continued, his voice condescending. [As of this moment you and every man and woman under your command are at my disposal.]

[...excuse me?] Captain Antielles' voice grew frigid, a dangerous edge to his quiet tone.

General Krell either didn't notice or simply didn't care. [You are excused Captain.]

General Krell addressed the remaining Naboo defenders and his republic troops. [All Forces advance! Crush the enemy!]

[General, this is Blue Leader of the Naboo Self-Defense Force. My men and I are on our last legs out here, we need to retreat back to the Array for repairs.]

[No Blue Leader you will advance and fight.]

[But- but sir!]

[YOU WILL FIGHT BLUE LEADER OR YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF IN COURT MARSHALL. Do I make myself clear Blue Leader?]

[... Crystal Sir.]

A shiver roiled through the Force, leaving Anakin uneasy.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Ahsoka was terrified.

Engines screamed against her montrals and her laser cannons thundered blinding green as she tore apart droid after droid in a blind rage. Ahsoka was vaguely aware that she should have been more concerned with the reckless way she threw herself into the fray but she just couldn't seem to dredge up the energy to care. The remnants of her quadron trailed behind her thinning the droid swarm with dogged determination and ruthless accuracy.

Ahsoka and the majority of the 501st's fighters had jumped from their hangars the second they dropped from hyperspace, flying in completely blind in the thick of a brutal battle of attrition. Carcasses of hundreds of dead naboo starfighters hung in space like ghosts among the blasted remains of vulture droids and CIS warships alike. If she were paying more attention Ahsoka would have been impressed that a battle group of only archaic starfighters and a single tiny space station had reduced a couple dozen CIS frigates and destroyers to space-dust.

She was numb to all this though, her Force-Bond with Master Krell thrashed and roiled in the back of her mind as if she was being repeatedly stabbed again and again with a red-hot branding iron. Her emotions were erratic and wild, her head throbbed with an irrational, all-consuming, and pointless rage that had her spitting and hissing like an animal trapped in a cage as she gunned down droid after droid. Her squadron's pleas fell on deaf montrals as she dove into the droid swarm alone again and again. with complete disregard for herself.

She was just so tired. She was tired of fighting this war, she was tired of fighting against Master Krell, she was so tired of worrying about the lives of her troopers

Ahsoka was so tired of caring.

So she stopped. She stopped caring about the squadron of good men at her back. She stopped caring about the consequences. She lost herself in her hateful fear and let it consume her.

She was fed up with being scared and hurt. Her hopelessness and fear twisted into a deep thrashing overwhelming rage that devoured her so completely even the pleas of her men went unheard as she dove into the enemy formations alone without a shred of self-preservation.

As the bloody dog-fight slogged on the young Togruta became dimly aware of a wild, feral screaming stabbing at the edge of her hearing. It took her several long seconds and her swallowing down a raw dry throat to realize it was coming from her.

She looked out at her windshield and caught the reflection of a stranger sneering back at her. The face was all wrong, twisted and distorted with blind rage and agony. An ashen orange face marred by hollow bags hanging under sunken dull blue eyes with a rabid snarl curling the unfamiliar girl's lips like a beaten and frightened animal trapped in a cage.

Ahsoka saw the feral girl's face distort into an expression of horror as recognition dawned on her.

That beaten and frightened animal in the windshield's reflection was her.

The world snapped back into focus all at once, the terrible din of battle deafening in her montral, the brilliant flash of guns and iridescent lasers cutting through the darkness of space blinding. The shouts crackling over the comm-channel were a punch to her head next. Her squadron's pleads slicing through the rattling cannon fire followed immediately after with an icy spike of terror.

[-ommander Tano! You're too far! You're surrounded! Commander Tano!]

Ahsoka's Delta-7 lurched violently from a nasty impact on her port side wing and her astromech screeched a desperate warning.

"Sithspit!" The young togruta cursed herself for her stupidity. She couldn't believe she let herself go like that! Whatever well of dark she had allowed herself to be dragged into was no place for a Jedi to dwell. She had failed, but this time she had not only let herself down, she had let her men down- again.

_Just like last time._

[Commander Tano! Are you back with us?]

"Yeah I'm back. I-I'm so sorry guys I-] Ashoka gasped as a swarm of vulture droids barreled down on her, their cannons flashing an angry red.

"Hold on R7!" Her astromech twittered a reluctant affirmative as Ashoka corkscrewed away and banked hard, her engines howling in protest from the violent maneuver. She got behind a few droids and blasted them to flaming stardust but her starfighter jerked from a spread of laserfire drilling into her flank. R7 screeched as the deflector shield controls sputtered and died.

"Well," Ashoka gulped. "that's not good."

Another bolt found its mark and ripped across her Delta-7's bow just barely missing R7's red and white dome.

"R7 full power to engines! Get us out of here!" her Astromech squealed an affirmative and the added thrust rocketed them out of their pursuers' line of fire for the moment. Red lasers hissed past them from behind and Ashoka knew she only had a few seconds before the droids zeroed in on her fighter and she'd be either vaporized or burned alive before her corpse is spaced from her cockpit. She screamed in terror when a laser slammed into her starboard wing and clipped her windshield leaving a nasty score across the transparisteel dome.

_I'm going to make it. _She chanted in her head as she dove and spun wildly to evade her pursuers. _I'm going to make it. I-I'm going to- I'm not going to make it!_

Her portside stabilizer exploded in a shower of fire and shrapnel and Ashoka could only press herself into her seat as the air was forced from her lungs as her fighter went into a wild tailspin.

Ashoka could only catch glimpses of the spinning starscape around her as she desperately fought to regain control of her starfighter, her engine's deep hum turned to a high pitched whine as she threw her joystick against the G-forces pressing down on her. She almost wished she hadn't looked. Just outside not even a hundred yards away a wing of vulture droids bore down on her, their cannons roaring.

Ahsoka clenched her teeth and shut her eyes against the impact.

It never came.

A flash of green and a roll of thunder rattled her guts against his spine and the vulture droids just… melted. Their hulls warped and combusted into balls of fire and shredding durasteel.

Ashoka gaped in awe as a dull gray Naboo starfighter spiralled and danced around the wrecks and spun around her limping starfighter playfully coming to a stop upside down above her close enough so she could see the pilot that just saved her. He was human with lightly tanned skin and a mop of curling honey brown locks that framed his handsome face and a short beard trailing along his strong jaw and powerful, deep blue eyes.

He looked so different outside the Holo-news propaganda reels that it took Ahsoka several long embarrassing moments of staring to recognise him. If the poor Togruta girl still had any air left in her lungs she would have gasped, instead all that came out was a little choke of shock.

Inside the strange gray Starfighter Anakin Skywalker himself was grinning up at her.

She saw his lips move and a warm and calming tenor voice crackled over the comm-channel.

[You alright in there?] Anakin Skywalker (THE Anakin Skywalker!) asked, a sharp eyebrow raised coyly in question.

"Oh Force take me…"

[What?]

"What?" Ahsoka blurted, confused. She re-ran her thoughts and her blue striped leeku flushed a dark blue in horror and embarrassment. "I-I said I'm fine Master Sk-Skywalker!" She had tried to put some of her old fire in her voice but it just came out as a squeak and the teenaged Padawan felt a sudden and powerful urge to find herself a deep dark hole and never come out.

His warmth laughter dyed her blush an even deeper shade of blue that edged dangerously close to purple.

[Well if you're still this snippy than I suppose you're doing just fine.]

"Yeah whatever, Skyguy."

Anakin let out a bark of laughter. [Skyguy?] He didn't notice the brief look of horror that overtook her face, but she forced a neutral mask over her expression when he addressed her again. [Let's get you back to your hangar for repairs-]

He flashed her one last smarmy grin before gunning the throttle. [-Snips.]

And suddenly Ahsoka didn't wasn't so terrified anymore.

A/N: Hello Untraveled here!

Long time no see! I apologize for the long, long wait (2 and a half months actually, though it felt a lot longer...) This chapter was exponentially more difficult for me to write and with my focus split with the holidays and work I just beat my face against the keyboard 'till one of us broke.

I won. clearly. Though it took a hot minute. (and four re-writes)

Anyway! It's good to put something up for y'all, especially after the very pretty dumpster fire that was episode IX. The movie was fun to look at and I love the character development. shame the story itself was trash. (In my opinion at any rate, but lets not go too far down THAT rabbit hole.)

And we see Ahsoka and Anakin finally meet! the circumstances of their first meeting is very different then canon but no matter how much has changed some things will stay the same.

-Comment Questions-

Kevin_Thunder: Where is this (Push Me Away, Let Me Go) in the timeline? Has "The Wrong Jedi" (Ahsoka leaving the order) Happened yet?

A: This fic is a year into the Clone Wars (about end of season 2- most of season 3). Ahsoka has not left the order, nor has she and Anakin met before. In this AU Anakin left the Order immediately after the events of Attack of the Clones where the Clone Wars Show starts.


	8. Episode 4: And Watch My Sky Fall

Episode 4

...and Watch My Sky Fall

With the sudden and awe striking arrival of the Republic fleet Captain Antilles and the crew of LOD array 13 burst into cheers, many on their feet roaring and pumping their fists in the air in triumph. Even the ever stoic Captain himself was wearing a broad grin on his face.

Up until that General Krell opened his mouth.

[All forces advance!] The Besalisk Jedi roared. [Crush the enemy!]

Captain Antilles saw red when the General denied N-SDF Blue Squadron reprieve to retreat and repair under threat of court martial - and in wartime that usually meant capital punishment.

Taking a swift note of the enemy positions displayed in the battle-map on the tactical display Captain Antilles keyed the station speakers. "Ion batteries 12 through 28 switch to vector 12 by 9, enemy starfighters are priority target. Turbolaser towers 3 and 6, fire a spread of lasers through vector 11 by 10. Give our boys some breathing room."

Having utmost faith in his crew to follow his orders even as the battle turned into a savage slug match at point blank range Captain Antilles punched in an encryption code into his comms terminal.

"Blue leader, this is Captain Antilles, do you read me?"

[Captain?] Blue leader sounded winded but alive. [Y-yes I read you.]

"Good, lead your men through sector 11-41 and return to the Array for repairs."

[B-but the general's orders-]

"I'm aware of what the general ordered, but on the account that it's a stupid ass order I've elected to ignore it. Contact me using this scramble set only, lest our savior decides to order his men to start shooting on us as well."

[Roger that Captain, falling back now.]

"Good man. Antilles out."

The Captain turned back to the tactical display looking more carefully at the Republic fleet's movements and frowned.

Something wasn't adding up about this General Krell, proper respect and decorum aside the General was pushing his forces through the enemy lines and out the other side often forcing his cruisers to get within mutual suicide range with other CIS vessels as they pass by.

It's almost like this Jedi General wants his forces to die.

On the right flank closest to the array a Venator smashed into a Recusant Light Destroyer, and even though the smaller destroyer was ripped apart from the impact the Venator had been relatively undamaged prior to impact. When the Venator came out of the destroyer's remains much of the Venator's forward bow was sheared away and the portside superstructure compromised with multiple liquid fires and crews on multiple decks spaced into the void.

"This is madness." He growled.

He turned away from the tactical display disgusted, choosing instead to monitor the comm traffic. It was fortunate that he did because when he sat down Captain Antilles caught the transmission from Master Skywalker, the only sane Jedi here. When he heard who he was arguing with though his lips turned down into a snarl.

[I will not allow her to land in this hangar in the middle of combat and endanger this ship!]

[General Krell she's your blasted apprentice you frog-lipped Neanderthal! She's going to die!]

[Gold Leader you will follow my orders or I will have no choice but to fire upon you!]

[Well, how about you can take your orders and shove em where the sun don't shine or I'll have no choice but to go in there and assist you with my boot!] Then without further preamble Master Skywalker cut the transmission leaving the good General snarling onto an empty channel.

Captain Antilles snorted, a tiny satisfied grin turning his lips. Seems the "Hero with No Fear" lives up to his moniker, though it is odd that Gold Leader hadn't identified himself as one of the Jedi Order? Is he not a Jedi? Is he not General Krell's equal?

A shrill alarm squealed and the deck officer manning the long range scanner shouted, panic evident in her voice. "Captain! something big was caught on our scanners!"

"What is it?" Antilles asked. "Another flotilla?"

"I…" The deck officer swallowed thickly, the incredible mass displacement reading maxing out the sensors. "I don't know what it is sir. Readings indicate it's a ship but the numbers are all wrong."

"What do you mean?" Suddenly Antilles didn't really want to know.

"It's near 300 million metric tonnes, sir. Whatever it is, it's bigger than the entire 501st fleet combined."

Warning sirens blared a deep mournful moan, heralding the monstrosity that tore out of hyperspace. the void screamed and shook as an ominous shadow dropped into orbit, the force of its entry rippled through every republic crewman, pilot, and officer trailing an icy trail of terror in its wake.

"Sweet Mother of Mercy." Antilles breathed in fearful awe as the hulking leviathan loomed over the entire battlefield like some ancient primordial horror.

Then the empty black lit up blood red as hundreds of Turbolaser towers loosed their terrible payload, marking the beginning of the end.

"Sir! Reinforcements from the surface have arrived!" Someone shouted over the deafening roar of the massive dreadnought's relentless salvo and the shrieking of dying ships.

Sure enough the beacons of some two hundred additional N-1's blinked to life exiting atmo and flying unknowingly straight to their doom.

[We must turn this menace back!] General Krell sneered over the open comm channel. [ All N-SDF reinforcements advance to the Star Destroyer Executer's position and prepare yourselves to charge the enemy!]

Captain Antilles did not try to contradict the insane Jedi General's order. Instead he quietly thumbed a small red button on his console, a silent retreat signal to all N-SDF still alive.

"Captain?" The deck officer asked, eyebrows raised in shock at the retreat code blinking on every screen on the bridge.

"The battle is lost." Antilles answered the unasked question. "I will not have Nabooian lives wasted in a power-drunk outsider's thirst for glory. Gather as many of the survivors scattered across the battlefield as you can and evac them to the surface."

"Just… Just Nabooian survivors sir?"

"Everyone Lieutenant."

"Yes sir!"

"Well, how about you can take your orders and shove em where the sun don't shine or I'll have no choice but to go in there and assist you with my boot!" Then with no small amount of vindictive satisfaction Anakin cut the transmission, much to Conner and Aela's amusement.

[You think the good General knows Gold Leader is a Jedi too?] Conner drawled, drawing snorts and eyerolls from the others.

The former Jedi sat back and growled, ending further conversation. He struggled to rein in his emotions as the Force roiled hot around him, urging him to let go and drown in his anger. He breathed in deep and let it out, each breath slower and calmer than the last as he gradually managed to bleed his rage out into the Force and center himself. When he was calm (enough) he opened a channel with the young Togruta girl drifting waylaid in her starfighter.

"You still with me Snips?" He asked in as level a tone as he could.

[You shouldn't have said that to Master Krell.] Came her mousey reply.

"Let me worry about him." Anakin scoffed. "C'mon, follow me."

[Where are we going Master Skywalker?] She asked. Anakin quirked a brow at her subdued, timid tone. Where did that all that fire and snark he had seen from her go?

"If your Master won't help than the Captain will."

[But my Master said- ]

"Look, It's going to be okay." Anakin said, trying to soothe her. " Just follow me. I don't want you dying out here."

[…]

"Okay?"

[...Y-yes Master Skywalker.]

"Good. Tell your men to rejoin the assault. I'd rather they come with us but somehow I doubt Krell would take kindly to pulling additional troops away from the fight."

He heard the Togruta girl swallow hard before doing what he asked then turning her damaged fighter around to trail after his exhaust port.

[Hey, Fearless leader, we got company. Fighters on our 3 by 9, half a click out and closing.]

"I see 'em. stick with me, we can't afford to waste time playing around in this sleking shit-storm. you hear that Padawan?"

[Yes Master!]

[Oh, so it's fine when the cute little kid calls you a Master Jedi but when we do it you act as if we crapped in your astromech's motivator?] Aela huffed.

[Hey!] The cute little kid protested. [I'm sixteen!] Anakin smirked, amused as how sudden her attitude could spin from cowed to outraged. [and why shouldn't you call him a Jedi Master?]

[well ever since he moved here he-]

"Aela!" Anakin barked, all signs of mild amusement gone. The Bothan wisely clamped her jaws shut.

He sighed, the tense silence from the Togruta Padawan palpable over the channel.

"You know, you seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't know your name." Anakin said off-handedly in hope of diffusing the awkward pause.

[O-oh! It's Ahsoka. My name I mean. Me. I'm Ahsoka. Ahsoka Tano. I-it's a pleasure to meet you Master Skywalker!] She blurted.

Anakin chuckled; he could practically hear her embarrassment over the comm channel, she was so mortified over her clumsy babbling Anakin felt her entire Force presence cringe. Poor girl, and here he thought he was bad at shielding his emotions. "It's nice to meet you too, Ahsoka."

Anakin focused back on flying through the deadly warzone, letting The Force pulled quietly at his hand as he led his people through the chaos of dying men and struggling mechanical leviathans tearing at each other's throats with Turbolaser teeth and durasteel hide.

[Reinforcements from the surface are here!] An LOD array deck officer cried over the open channel. Anakin looked back towards the planet and counted several hundred pin pricks of yellow rising from Naboo's atmosphere.

Perhaps this defense wasn't hopeless after all!

That's when it happened. Anakin was in between dancing through a swarm of vulture droids and ducking around a munificent frigate when an all-too-familiar flavor of dark, refined blend of cultivated hate and calculated anger spilled into the Force, flooding his senses and setting the nerves of his stump on fire.

[What-] Padawan Tano stuttered. She felt the disturbance too, but the sensation was foreign to her. [What is that?]

Anakin's expression darkened, a sneer peeling his lips back instinctively, like an animal trapped and faced with its predator.

"Dooku." Anakin spat the name like a curse.

A massive hulking monstrosity dropped out of hyperspace with a thunderous, shuddering roar. Even from his position several dozen klicks away the ripple of distorted space tossed his starfighter like stray sea foam in a tsunami. He righted his fighter and dread plunged into his heart, warring with his own hatred and rage.

The ship that dropped out of hyperspace looked like a Providence class dreadnought ate another providence class and grew teeth. Just from the silhouette alone Anakin guessed it was larger than the Capital City of Theed, maybe even bigger than the 501st's entire fleet combined.

[We must turn this menace back!] General Krell sneered over the open comm channel. [ All N-SDF reinforcements advance to the Star Destroyer Executer's position. Acclimator Squadron Alpha-9-3 prepare yourselves to charge the enemy!]

Anakin cut a gentle slope across the bow of an approaching Acclimator Frigate, its Turbolaser batteries thundering out a rapid quintet of destruction, its fellows joining in and turning their guns to the gargantuan fleet-destroyer. It was like gnats buzzing around a giant, they never stood a chance.

The former Jedi had to dodge aside behind The first Acclimator's command bridge as its deflector shields lit up in a kaleidoscope of color, it's poor position putting it under the combined firepower of the huge battleship's portside turbolaser batteries.

"What is your Master thinking?!" Anakin roared spinning away from the vicious barrage of friendly and enemy laser fire. The Acclimator's shields buckled under the onslaught, durasteel hull shredding like paper mâché and it's decks spewing atmo like a slit artery. Between the fiery debris the white plastoid of clone troopers writhed helplessly in the void.

[H-he-] Ahsoka choked, sounding on the verge of tears and mild shock.

Similar flashes of fire and death bloomed across the battlefield. General Krell ruthlessly marched the space forces of the 501st into the enemy titan's waiting maw, and though the brave clones fought valiantly the untiring droid army was relentless. The CIS invaders had stalled the 501st's momentum, now the ambush had slogged into a grudge match.

General Krell seemed intent on sabotaging himself. time and time again he would push a frigate or Venator Star Destroyer until the overextended unit would find themselves in too deep and eventually devoured by Separatist Turbolaser fire or a swarm of Vulture Droids. Anakin saw a distressingly small number of escape pods launch from the doomed Republic vessels, and those lucky few that did make it to a pod were flung to the planet below.

Rage the likes of which he could only compare to when his Mother died spilled like scalding lead into Anakin's veins, cracking his mental shields and making his vision dim red.

"Those are our people he just killed. OUR KRIFFING PEOPLE!" Anakin snarled, his Force presence searing hot with fury. What power leaked through his cracked mental shields crashing over the Togruta in suffocating waves.

[I-I-I-I… I'm _sorry. _]

Anakin building anger boiled over, overcoming him for a moment, until he heard the fear Padawan Tano's stuttering voice. His anger fizzled as guilt rose up to mix with the hate that brewed beneath the surface, the sensation made him ill. He wrangled his emotions back behind his mental shields and swallowed thickly.

"It's… it's not your fault Padawan." Anakin spat, still wrestling with his fury. The young Togruta shrank from the former Jedi's poorly concealed ire, even if it wasn't aimed at her. Choosing to move on he addressed the others, "We gotta get out of the way of that fleet-killer! Gold Squadron, we're making for the array. Padawan Tano. Stick close to me."

[Yes Master Skywalker.]

The rest of Gold Squadron sped ahead mopping up a few strays buzzing around along their route to the LOD array, Aela with rapidly growing efficiency as her confidence grew. Gen-Dan and Conner swept around the husk of a Munificent Frigate double-tapping a few Vulture droid stragglers hiding in the flaming debris.

[The waysa is clear.] Gen-Dan babbled swinging around the frigate's ravaged hull to rejoin with Gold Squadron around Ahsoka's fighter.

A sudden discharge of crimson light spilled from the shadow of the destroyed frigate, red laser fire shredding the Gungan's fighter from behind, catching everyone off guard. Fire and plasma sheared into the N-1's power core, turning the yellow fighter into an inferno. Gen-Dan's screech of agony was cut off when the explosion erupted into the cockpit, cremating the brave Gungan pilot alive.

[NOT CLEAR! IT'S NOT KRIFFING CLEAR!] Conner roared, pitching into a tight roll away from the spread of crimson lasers.

A familiar Sith fighter screamed out of the debris like a bat out of hell, its solar sails slightly damaged from Anakin's fireball and its cannons firing wildly. A wave of giddy sadistic glee spilled out into the Force from its power-drunk pilot as it reveled in its kill.

"Tano! Go!" Anakin shouted, cutting his fighter around and firing back at the Gen-Dan's killer with rapid bursts from his nose mounted cannons. "Aela, Gold 5, stick with her. Get to the array!"

[You got it boss.] Gold 5 clipped tightly; his voice overtaken with a deadly calm. Aela didn't trust her voice to reply, instead all that came out was a watery frustrated growl.

Ahsoka gunned her throttle as far as she dared but fire flashed rapidly from her damaged starboard engine and it sputtered and belched a cloud of fire, leaving her a drifting, juicy target.

[Nononononono!] She cried, smashing her ship's wildly sparking control console in a blind panic. [R7! Help!]

The Sith pilot didn't waste the opening, zipping a neat circle around Conner's ship and and swooping under Aela's N-1, making a fool of them both, their spread of laser going wide and missing by a mile. The Sith accelerated towards the vulnerable padawan, sinking its teeth into its prey with a short blast from its cannons.

[Help me please!] Ahsoka cried, her plea reaching desperately into the Force.

A gray shape tore out of the void taking the shots meant for Ahsoka. The prototype N2-F's shields flared then popped, the barrage overloaded the shields and smashed into Anakin's unprotected hull, ravaging the small starcraft's nose armor into space junk. The former Jedi's fighter spun wildly from the impact black smoke spilling ominously from the gaping holes in his bow and throwing Anakin against his restraints.

[Master!] Ahsoka gasped.

[I'm-!] Anakin grunted against the nylon straps squeezing the air out of his chest as he fought for control of his fighter. Sparks erupted from his fighter's controls and splashed against his exposed skin as every button, switch and light on his dashboard flashed red as if in a rave.

[-Fine.] he finished, throwing his weight against his joystick and spinning his fighter around in a hair-pin turn. [I'm fine! Just run!]

[I-I'm trying! My astromech is almost done!] Her undamaged engine's plasma ignitor stuttered, blue fire sputtering frantically in an attempt to turn her stubborn thrusters over.

[I got'cha girl!] Aela had turned around as well, cannons flashing, forcing the Sith to zip away from the incoming spread of lasers and buying Ashoka a few more precious seconds.

Padawan Tano's Delta-7 choked then started with a rough cough, blue fire flaring from her undamaged engine. [Yes!]

[Sith's comin' around!] Gold 5 shouted, firing towards the nimble red and black fighter dancing through the debris.

Ahsoka gunned her throttle and her fighter lurched forward, picking up speed, though she did list badly to the left. Aela and Gold 5 swept around and covered her retreat while Anakin and Conner stayed behind to harass the Sith, but when Anakin tried to fire his cannons his starboard nose cannon exploded.

[Skywalker!] Conner saw his cannon magazine detonate and rip the top bow armor open like a can of sardines, fire and black smoke belching out of the wound, curling around Anakin's cockpit and obscuring his vision.

"It's fine! I'm fine!" Anakin shouted back through gritted teeth. Artoo twittered an irritated admonishment and scrambled to douse the flames while routing charged plasma and fuel away from the massive rent in his fighter.

[You are not fine! It's not kriffing fine!] Ahsoka cried. [You're literally on fire!]

"Nah, just a little toasty is all!" He cheeked. "Artoo what's the word?"

Artoo's answer wasn't exactly encouraging. One cannon gone, the other crippled, both torpedo magazines rendered useless, shields were now officially toast and the jogan fruit on top of the steaming pile of poodoo? The fuel tanks, both main and auxiliary, had vented almost their entire volume, leaving them flying on fumes.

"Greaaaat." Anakin deadpanned drawing the word out.

[Skywalker, I see the LOD Array! 5 klicks and closing!] Aela reported.

[I got Sithshit stuck on my tail!] Conner barked.

[Gah! that fighter's so tiny! It's so hard to hit!] Gold 5 shouted.

The Sith's ship was basically just a big eyeball with two thin supports a palms-width wide. If it wasn't for the red solar sails stretched between the supports it would be nearly impossible to see let alone shoot, that's not counting just how blistering fast the karking thing is.

[2 Klicks away!] Aela gasped. [Kid! roll right! right!]

Padawan Tano lurched starboard turned into a drunken barrel roll just as the Sith fighter screamed past, its cannons spitting crimson death, and missing the Togruta's crippled ship by inches.

[By the Huntress, that was close!] Padawan Tano hissed.

[we're at the array! Bay 12, go to bay 12!] Aela barked. The Bothan yipped as a few of the Sith's shots clipped her starboard thruster with a frightening bang. [Incoming!]

The Sith spun and cut from its dive, the small craft tossing and dancing between the struggling members of Gold Squadron as nimble as a leaf in a gale and equally as difficult to catch.

Padawan Tano's luck finally ran out when a stuttering burst from the Sith's cannons found their mark and took the blue and white starfighter broadside, tearing through the brave little red domed astromech on her bow and rupturing her cannon's magazine.

[R7! No!] Tano screamed. She was close, so, so close to safety. The Array's interior lights were easily visible on the other side of the hangar's invisible magnetic field not even a hundred yards away.

The Sith's anticipation grew to new heights as it closed in on its prey once again, determined to claim its victim, bloodthirsty glee building and spilling out in revolting waves into the force.

Anakin frantically scoured his badly damaged fighter's controls like a man possessed. _C'mon there's gotta be something! Anything!_ His hands flicked through dead cannon toggle and useless torpedo controls. While he searched hoping for something to use to save the young girl one of his fingers brushed up against his thrust controls.

Then he got an idea. A terrible one he admitted, but it was the only one he got.

"Artoo, cut power from all other systems and divert them to the thrusters." Artoo caught on quick to Anakin's idea and was predictably not so enthusiastic about his pilot's plan, though he did do as he was told.

"Well, I don't have the ordinance-" Anakin replied, a sad but stalwart grin stretched across his face as the additional power overclocked the plasma rotors until the rumbling whine wound into a high pitched roar, white hot flame billowing from the exhaust ports. "-But I do have the mass!"

[Skywalker what-] Aela saw his ravaged fighter aimed right in front of the Sith's path, then she got it. [No, Anakin-!]

The N2-F bucked from the massive increase in thrust and shot off like a bullet. The world around Anakin seemed to spiral into a snail's pace, as if he were suddenly piloting through molasses.

He could count the flash of blue and red from the massacre of the republic fleet in the distance. He reveled in the singing engines beside and behind him. He looked down at the world of green and blue below, marveling at the beauty of his adopted home world.

He clenched his left hand, the warm metal of his wedding band underneath his glove was heavy there around his finger. Padme would understand he was sure, though if these were his last breaths he would still spend them apologizing.

He glanced at the young Togruta Jedi, her orange face scrunched up in repressed grief, fear and anger. He noticed the moment she saw him, the way her cerulean eyes widened and her expression grew slack in horror when she figured out his plan. Then the moment was over, and time cranked back up to a blur.

His aim was perfect, his timing impeccable, and the Sith never saw it coming; But Anakin was sure it saw his broad smarmy grin through his cockpit when he rammed his starfighter into that stupid red eyeball. The impact joined both starfighters into a warped mess of fire and steel and sent them both hurtling downward to the planet below.

[NOOO!]

Ahsoka hardly felt when her wrecked starfighter smashed into the hangar floor. She only felt cold and numb. So many more of her men dead. Even two others died trying to save her worthless life! Why?! It's all her fault! Why? Why did they have to die to save her? why… Why did she have to be born?

Sirens groaned faintly through her sealed cockpit and she curled up into her seat and buried her head between her legs to block out the world, not caring that the sky was falling all around her.

"-ano! Padawan Tano!" Ahsoka thought she could vaguely hear a female voice calling her name, but she didn't recognize it. She must be imagining it- "Hey Kid!"

"I'm not a kid!" Ahsoka didn't realize that she had replied on reflex until she noticed that she was staring through her cracked windshield at a female Bothan knocking against the Transparisteel.

"There we go, you're alive. Why does calling you a kid make you…" the Bothan- _Aela, from Gold Squadron _-Shook her canid head, her spear shaped ears whipping back and forth from the motion. "Nevermind. Look we- we gotta go."

"Go?" Ahsoka looked down at her hands clasped in the lap of her baggy orange flight suit. "Go where?"

"The escape pods! Captain Antilles called a retreat. Any and all personnel that can't get back to the surface on their own has to board a pod before that huge fleet-muncher gets within firing range. C'mon!"

"But-"

"No buts! Skywalker and Gen-Dan kriffing died to get us here!" Aela's muzzle turned up into a snarl, and Ahsoka felt the Bothan's anger roll of her, anger at both herself and the creature that killed them. "I'm not going to lose any more of my people today!"

"But… I'm not one of your people."

"You are now!" The Bothan declared. Ahsoka recoiled as if she'd been burned, the Bothan's words shocking her out of her daze. "Now quit stalling and get out here! You and I can find a nice dark corner and cry over a bottle of Gomorra Grog when a bunch of killer space droids ain't trying to kill us!"

"I can't drink though."

"If you're old enough to fight and die in a war then you're old enough for a drink, now c'mon!"

"Right, R7 pop the-" Ahsoka choked, eyes roaming to the blasted lower half of her astromech. "- Just, just Give me a sec." She released the hatch seal but the glass got stuck on a damaged piece of armor. She in the end she kicked the windshield out and slipped from her totaled fighter on shaky limbs.

Ahsoka flinched when the Array's wailing sirens punched her in the montrals, their mournful wail making her head swim. The rest of the hangar was a madhouse of barely contained chaos as wave after wave of damaged fighters both Naboo and Republic alike slammed down onto the hangar floor much like she had not moments before, all crumpled hull and spurting fluids as those that could clambered from their ships while the others were dragged from their cockpits, too many of them in pieces. Outside the invisible magnetic field keeping the atmosphere inside the thunderclap of erupting ships and rapid beat of a thousand turbolaser towers shook the LOD array like a spaceborne maraca.

The separatist's giant fleet killer cast a dark foreboding shadow over the entire battle. Its jagged hull lit sporadically by the crimson flashes of its guns as it slowly, ominously turned broadside, exposing the massive disk protruding from the portside hull to the republic formation. For some reason just looking at the glowing ring around the odd disk set alarm bells ringing in Ahsoka's montrals.

The young Togruta felt an unpleasant static buzzing at the base of her rear leeku as arcs of purple lightning throomed into existence spitting and thrashing around and across the disk.

"I got a bad feeling about this." Ahsoka murmured, her blue and white leeku twitching in time with her fingers as adrenaline surged into her exhausted body.

"Whatever that thing is, I want no part of it!" Aela barked, pulling at Ahsoka's arm urgently.

The purple lightning surged brighter and brighter, drawing the attention of every Republic ship still in the fight. The surviving defenders turned their guns onto the pulsing disk, firing desperately with everything that they had before that ship could finish whatever it was doing.

The harsh crackling charge reached an ear-bleeding crescendo then the massive weapon fired with crack-thoom. A huge pulse of sickly purple lightning was flung from the disk shaped emitter and tore into the Republic ranks that left a starfield of dead cruisers, star destroyers, and starfighters adrift in its wake, their systems overloaded and compromised.

"It's getting closer!" Ahsoka screamed over the collective wail of terror from the others in the hangar as everyone that was able ran for the interior doors. The purple Electromagnetic pulse was growing larger and larger outside the hangar's mouth.

"The pods! Get to the blasted pods!" Aela shouted, throwing herself into the thrashing mob fighting to get through the blast doors. In their desperation base survival instinct took over pilots and hangar workers, leaving behind a horde of fleeing animals biting, clawing, and snarling to escape the impending shadow of death breathing hot at their backs.

Ahsoka was no different, the diminutive Padawan threw what little weight she had into the mass of scrambling bodies and more then once she felt her elbow, montral, or fist connect with flesh and cloth. She had kept Aela in sight, thankfully made easier by the fact that she was the only Bothan in the hangar.

She felt her hand curl around the blast door's frame and for a moment Ahsoka thought she and Aela was going to make it… then the EMP smashed into the Array and swept through the station. The EMP singed Ahsoka's orange flesh and killed the relay's power systems, then the hangar's magnetic field fizzled out and stole her breath away as the hangar's atmosphere, along with everyone inside, as spaced into the void.

Ahsoka's cry of pain and terror was drowned out by the rush of depressurized air as her arm was nearly wrenched from its socket, but somehow her grip on the blast door held. Bodies clawed at her flight suit and thrashed desperately as they were sucked out of the hangar and into oblivion. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Aela's gray fur as the Bothan clutched helplessly for a handhold on the smooth durasteel floor.

"Take my hand!" Ahsoka's words were swept away by the roar of air in her montrals but Aela's wide panicked eyes zeroed in on the thin Padawan's outstretched fingers. As the Bothan was dragged passed she lunged for Ahsoka's hand, but her fingertips slipped through her grasp and the Bothan opened her mouth in an unheard scream as she was yanked out of the hangar.

"Nooo!" Ahsoka thrust her hand out towards Aela's rapidly shrinking form and dug deep into the force, her fear and anger answered her call and the young Padawan felt her free arm yank as the Bothan pilot jerked to a stop just at the edge of the open hangar, her gray furred limbs still thrashing for some anchor.

The Bothan finally noticed her halted momentum and blinked owlishly down at herself then at the young girl in awe. Already Ahsoka's abused body was shaking like a leaf under the strain of hanging one handed from a ledge with the full force of a hemorrhaging atmosphere bearing down on her. She clenched her eyes shut and with a wretched scream of excursion pulled Aela against the punishing air and somehow managed to set her on the edge of the blast door next to her.

Aela climbed over the ledge and plastered herself against the wall and grabbed onto Ahsoka's forearm and yanked the Padawan safely into the corridor then kicked at the manual door controls by her boot. The Blast doors slammed closed with a crash and both women collapsed to the darkened corridor breathing in deep gulps of the severely thinned air.

"We-we gotta get moving…" Aela panted. "We gotta get out of here."

Ahsoka tried to get up but her legs buckled halfway up. Her vision darkened, her body finally succumbing to the punishment and neglect she had endured. She wavered there on the edge of blacking out, unresponsive and limp in Aela's arms as the Bothan dragged her onboard an escape pod.

She finally lost the battle with herself somewhere between getting strapped into a seat and the launch sequence. Not even passing out provided her respite, however. Instead her dreams were of honey brown hair and a warm voice that made her feel safe in her dark little world. That is, until she reached out and was forced to listen to the warm voice scream as it fell from the sky, down, down, down into the nothingness below.

Captain Antilles stood defiantly in the center of the dark command bridge watching the massive fleet killer turn its guns onto the Republic fleet and tear Naboo's would-be saviors apart. The weathered old veteran scowled as the savaged corpses of destroyed cruisers fell from the sky towards Naboo's swampy lands below where they would either burn up upon entry into the atmosphere or further ravage his beautiful home world.

He noticed one Republic ship still lived though, and his scowled darkened when he recognized it as General Krell's flagship, the Executor. The Venator turned from the one-sided slaughter and flickered away, the good General fleeing the battlefield into hyperspace to leave the rest of his fleet to be butchered.

By the time the EMP knocked out power to the array Antilles had already evacuated as many of his people as he could from the station, that left him and two others alone to the man the bridge. He didn't even want to know how many people he lost below decks when the EMP fried the reactor. The array's hangars were open when the EMP hit, and after the surge passed through the station he saw a cloud of bodies, ships, and equipment vent into the cold empty space around the bridge's viewports.

He prayed that even just a few managed to get to the escape pods safely, or at the very least that the Jedi Youngling Master Skywalker had sacrificed himself for had gotten away. He hoped his son got his wife and their young boy to safety as well.

_All this blood spilt, all this tragedy… and for what? Politics? Money?_

The old man's sigh was interrupted when his Comms console sparked and fizzled, then to the Captain's surprise gave a strain chirp.

Someone was hailing him.

Staring at the blinking button for only a moment Antilles pressed the button and opened the channel. He took a deep breath, knowing that these were very likely his last words and decided to make them count, putting a defiant boom to his wizened bass voice. "This is Captain Antilles of the Naboo Self-Defense Force in command of LOD Array 13. Identify yourself."

The holo-comm fizzled reluctantly to life and two very different figures flickered to being above the projector, and both figures Antilles and anyone else not living under a rock would recognize.

[Such a… strong voice for such a helpless insect.] The wretched metal monstrosity wheezed. [I had thought to speak to a Jedi, not a decrepit old meat-bag.]

"You had just missed him I'm afraid, General Grievous." Antilles sneered. "How about you tottle your malfunctioning metal arse on out of my orbit and go back to playing with your droids on some other skugg-hole. I hear Kalee is barren and horrible this time of year."

Grievous let out a feral snarl, his Mechno-hands drawing from his collection of lightsabers as if to strike the impudent human down through the holo-comm, the imposing nobleman beside Grievous smirked at the venom in Antilles' clever jab.

Count Dooku turned his attention to the fearless old man. [Well Captain, I am impressed with your guile and wisdom in battle. While the fools of the Republic throw themselves onto our teeth you had worked to save your men and retreat, even while holding off a superior force.] Dooku arched an eyebrow in question, [Perhaps you see the wisdom in surrendering and turning to save your world from further unnecessary destruction?]

"Destruction that we would find and your hand." Antilles scoffed then slowly and deliberately extended his middle finger towards the count. "Go to Hell, Nerf-fucker."

Dooku's eyes were comically wide and even Grievous was brought up short in his rage as he stared back and forth between the shocked Count and smug Nabooian Captain. Then Dooku's eyes narrowed into thin slits of gold and crimson.

[You first.] The Sith snarled, then swept a hand towards the station. [Malevolence, fire forward cannons. I want that station erased.] Then he cut the connection.

Antilles looked over at his Deck Officer and Lieutenant as they were leaning on each other howling with laughter. The Old Man's face broke out into a broad grin as he joined them by the viewport facing the battlefield.

"I hope someone got that on recording somewhere!" Lieutenant Chel chortled, running a hand through her short black hair.

"The look on his face!" Officer Daniel exclaimed, wrapping an arm around both the lieutenant and Captain.

Antilles shook his head in fond exasperation at his younger subordinates. They all saw the Malevolence aim its bow towards them and turn its forward guns onto the defenseless station, though none of them seems concerned about it.

"My only regret is that I couldn't have done it in person."

Lieutenant Chel giggled and kissed the grizzled old-timer on the cheek. "Your son and grandson would be so proud!"

"What no kiss on the cheek for me?" Daniel asked in a mock hurt voice.

"Hm… screw it, we're gonna die anyway!" the short woman yanked the lanky Deck Officer forward and mashed her lips onto his.

Antilles just rolled his eyes at the younger two as death approached them.

"At least…" Daniel breathed between coming up for air from LT Chel's lips. "I get to kiss a woman right before we get atomized."

"Heh. There are worse ways to go." Chel gasped, as they finally broke apart.

"How about we give ourselves a proper send off?" Antilles proposed. "A one finger salute as we go down with our station?"

The three of them threw one last smirk between themselves and extended their middle fingers towards Dooku one last time before they were consumed by crimson fire and then the brave Captain and his officers were no more.


	9. Episode 5: Blood and Mire

Episode 5

Blood and Mire

Thirty minutes after the sirens sounded a CIS Armada numbering well over three hundred warships punched through Naboo's Defense Network and launched a blitzkrieg campaign onto Naboo's Communication arrays.

Faster than anyone could have thought possible Naboo was now cast adrift from the rest of the Galaxy, and no one was the wiser.

Scores of droid bombers flew ahead of the descending droid army ravaging the defenseless planet and bludgeoning civilian targets for the droids to mop up. The initial assault laid waste to 30% of the Capital City of Theed and disabled the power grid, further crippling the options the Royal Guards had in rallying an adequate defense.

Padme had no delusions however, that they could somehow hold. It was only a matter of time before the city fell.

One hour after the invasion began the first wave of B-1 battle droids swarmed the city while the royal guards were still setting up the outer defenses. Though the invaders were routed four guards were killed and eight wounded, the visceral suddenness of death tanked the morale of the newer untested guards that had not taken part in the first invasion ten years prior. Despite the casualties the outer defenses were completed with the inner barricades shored with civilian vehicles and rubble plugging the holes in the ramshackle defensive line.

To Padme the barricades looked about as sturdy as the weak-kneed guard recruits, that is to say not much. Oh how she wished Anakin were here right now, but he was on the other side of the planet at the R&D facility. She prayed that he was alright.

Two hours after the Invasion began the majority of the rescue teams were drawn away from the casualty triage inside the palace's energy shield and redeployed to reinforce the city's defenses. They had done all they could for the devastated city and its residents.

Padme's heart went out to any survivors still trapped amidst the rubble and carnage but she had to choose between those already saved or spending manpower and energy they needed on the faint possibility of saving a few more people that couldn't add to their defensive strength. Guilt bit into her heart but she had to choose the many over the few. She prayed that her people would forgive her, and that she could forgive herself.

Three hours after the Invasion began another wave of Bombers swept across the city with the Royal Navy's pilots biting back, cutting down most of the bombers before they reached the city. It was only a prelude to the next wave of droids, this one much larger than before further reinforced with B-2 super battle droids and a squadron of AAT hover tanks. The AAT's went down with concentrated fire from mounted repeater cannons and heavy blaster fire but this time casualties mounted in the dozens along with the loss of three Flash Speeders, the royal guard's light security vehicle.

The fighting had been brutal but the outer defenses held, barely. Thinking minds sitting safe behind palace walls were useless in a battlefield so Padme threw herself into the triage effort under the steely eyes of Seava Lonnar, a matronly nurse from a local ER. Bringing back the dead guards draped over their still warm weapons was arguably worse than the fighting. Here the senator either carried a crying man or woman spilling out crimson into the brick and mire or she was face to face with the eyes of a brave man glazed over in death, one of many who had died on her order.

She kept seeing Anakin in those sightless stares, sneering, accusing.

It's strange to think that just a few hours ago Naboo was at peace and she was tangled up with her husband safe and warm in post-coital bliss. Oh how could things go so wrong so quickly?

The third hour blurred into the fourth as the droid forces crashed across the defensive line in rolling waves of steel and blaster fire, never giving the guards a second to catch their breath. Their only saving grace was that the enemy could only advance on one side of the city as the palace and the city proper were backed against a sheer cliff face. Though if they were pushed back into the palace plaza then Padme would be forced to open the hidden escape tunnels to evacuate as many of her people as she could, lest they fight a pitched battle with a droid army on one side and a long nasty drop on the other.

This time Padme was on the forefront of the fighting, though in a twisted way she was thankful for it. Getting shot at was a very good distraction from her worry for her husband's fate, and the pain in her wounded leg. Her trimmed muscles were still inflamed from the bacta treatment rapidly swelling and closing the torn flesh. She was good for the most part

"Mama! God make it stop! Please! Mama!" Had this been anywhere else than a battlefield Padme would have comforted the poor young woman clutching the shattered remains of her arm. This time however she just wrenched the guardswoman's jaw open and shoved a strip of leather between her clenched teeth for the girl to bite down on as agony lanced through her ragged limb. The woman was so consumed in pain she hardly seemed to notice and just bit harder into the leather as if it were the cause of her torment. Thankfully her whimpers stifled into muffled sobs and growls giving Padme a reprieve from her screaming as she dragged the guard into a medical speeder flanked by a team of volunteers.

"I got her." One of the volunteers relieved her of the screaming girl and laid her into the back of the enclosed speeder. When the middle aged man went to jump out of the speeder a crimson bolt lanced from out of nowhere and tore through the volunteer's chest. Padme gaped, blinking in shock as the man looked down at the smoking hole in his chest in confusion before crumpling to the speeder floor. The meaty thud the dying man made when he fell jolted Padme out of her stupor. She drew her hold out blaster and scrambled for cover as more blaster fire rattled the speeder's hull.

"Go! Get out of here!" She yowled over the reawakened cacophony of battle. A volunteer scrambled into the back of the speeder and tended to his fallen partner as the driver gunned the throttle and kicked up dust as he made for the triage. Padme flattened herself against a pile of rubble and peaked out towards the outer defensive line a hundred meters or so away. She could just barely hear the clanking thud of marching droids over the stuttering report of guards trading blaster fire with the invaders.

"Senator!" Padme whipped her head around as Captain Typho slid across a field of blaster fire and into cover beside her. "You're covered in blood."

Padme blinked then looked down at herself. Her borrowed guardsman body armor was drenched to the point the brown material was a crusty crimson-black. The dried blood on her hands crunched as she flexed her aching fingers. Besides her exhausted muscles there was no other pain.

"It's alright," She replied with a dry swallow. "It's not mine."

Typho assessed her numbed expression with a frown then hefted his heavy blaster pistol aloft and extended a gloved hand. "We need to get you to a safer location."

"The forward command center," She breathed, swallowing to wet her throat, dried from dust and her own adrenaline induced terror. "take me there."

"My Lady…" Her bodyguard began to say.

Despite being in the middle of a firefight Typho still managed to level an exasperated frown her way, as if he were trying to coax a much younger Padme from making a rash decision. Like going on a rescue mission with a Padawan to save a Jedi from a coliseum or using the palace's defense budget to purchase the stock an entire candy store when she had been struck with a craving for Aldeeranian caramel swirls.

"If I may, you would be far safer inside the Palace-"

"And how do you propose we do that?" Padme snapped back more icily than she had meant to. "Take another run through the city back to the palace? The medical speeder's gone. We're stuck here until we can turn these droids away."

Unlike her, Captain Typho kept his composure a better, though his long-suffering sigh did come out as more of a growl. "Then you are not to stray from my side. I'm sworn to protect you Milady and with the Queen still on Coruscant representing Naboo in the Galactic Peace Conference and General Ablest MIA,you are now the highest ranking in the city. We can't afford to lose you."

"I-" Padme let out a slow calming breath. "I know Captain. I understand, I will keep close."

Captain Typho studied her expression for any signs that she was lying then gave a curt nod. "Very well. We're too exposed here. Are you ready?"

On Padme's nod they both made a dash for the outer defenses as angry crimson bolts hissed by and dusted off the brick road beneath their feet. Padme's back slapped the barricade with her bodyguard taking cover beside her, both were out of breath but alive.

Squads of guards surrounded Padme on all sides, ducking incoming blaster fire and peeking out to take shots of their own. Every now and then a screech of agony tore the air as another droid blaster bolt found its mark and the unfortunate guard tumbled from the barricade, smoke wafting from singed flesh.

Captain Typho snatched a Guard Sergeant as he passed by. When the Sergeant saw who had stopped him he stiffened to attention, though he had wits enough not to salute in the middle of battle.

"At ease." Typho waved the man down. "We need to get to the Forward Command Center. Take us there."

"Y-Yes sir!" The poor guy's voice squeaked a little when faced with the weight of ordering around what was effectively their people's leader and her frowning bodyguard. "Follow me then ma'am, sir. I'll show you the way."

Ducking through the throng of controlled chaos the sergeant led the pair back several hundred yards back from the front line and pointed the senator and her bodyguard to a section of barricade overshadowed by a thick wall pockmarked by cannon fire. It looked solid enough to take a few more shots from an AAT. Though if tanks were to get close enough to fire on their position Padme knew Typho would pull her back from the front, her reasoning and logic be damned.

"This wall marks the outer perimeter to the command center." The sergeant explained above the thump-thump-thump of a nearby blaster cannon replying to the incoming volley of laserfire. He pointed to a circle of rubble manned by a squad of guardsmen laying prone behind the stacks of crumbled stone some few dozen yards away over a small clearing. "The entrance is behind that barricade my lady."

"Thank you sergeant." Padme called on her years of diplomatic rigor and cracked a calm appreciative smile for the mire and blood-blasted soldier. "You are dismissed. Stay safe."

The guard returned her smile with a bashful nod and a tip of his leather cap and slipped away; his S-5 heavy blaster pistol held aloft as he ran back ahead to rejoin his squad.

The guards at the entrance had spotted the sergeant leading Padme and Typho and the lieutenant recognized the senator of Naboo instantly and waved them both through.

The inside of the wall was reinforced by heavy armor plates with support struts anchoring the armor against the barricade to further protect the jerry-rigged command center set up inside. High ranking officers of the Royal Guard were milling around like panicked ants scuttling around their hill. Uniformed personnel worked furiously on computers, comm terminals, and translucent tactical maps balanced on top of their travel crates; and at the epicenter of this controlled chaos stood the Head of Security, a tall and handsome dark-skinned man barking orders and strutting around as he conducted this orchestra of madness.

"Director Panaka!" Padme's voice lulled the ambient rumble of tense conversation as every eye turned to the young woman sweeping into the command center.

"Senator?!" Director Quarsh Panaka squawked, a familiar expression of incredulous panic on his face. "What are you doing here! There's war going on outside!"

Padme rolled her eyes. Panaka had served as her bodyguard when she was a child then as Queen, before stepping down to make way for his nephew Typho to take the helm. He was familiar with the headstrong woman's style of "aggressive negotiation" but still, of all the blasted places to show up…

"I'm well aware Director." Padme cut in, she brushed a filth covered hand down her bloodstained body armor and felt sick from the gritty wet that clung to her fingers. "However, with the enemy knocking at our door caution is a luxury no one can afford."

Panaka looked to his nephew and Typho just shook his head with a helpless shrug. Panaka's lips thinned into a scowl then he sighed.

"Fine." He growled and pointed at a tactical map of the surrounding area and a comm station near the back of the room. "We're drawing up contingency plans for when we abandon the outer walls. A few of the governors of the surrounding cities are reluctant to cooperate while the world is under siege."

The room shook as cannon fire struck the barricade and muted blaster fire screamed outside, spurring the command Center back into action.

Padme bobbed her head, deferring to her former bodyguard's order then made her way to the indicated tactical map and joined the conversation of the officers already embroiled in a debate by the comm station.

The overall retreat plan had already been established while setting up the layers of defensive positions around and inside the city. However, Padme found hammering out the finer details was a lot harder than she had assumed, especially with the quickly deteriorating defensive situation.

There were over 854 guardsmen organized into 63 squads and the forward command center throughout the city of Theed. Out of those, most were part-time volunteers, with less than 59 active duty personnel. Many of the guards were retired or greenhorns armed with civilian sporting blasters or dusty antiques pulled from the dusty crevices of the Palace armory. The only thing that separated these novice recruits that barely knew which end of the blaster to point at the enemy and an unfeeling, uncaring horde of killer droids was a pile of crumbled rocks.

To say that the tactical situation was in dire straits was an understatement.

"How many operational transports can we use to get the civilians out of the city and to one of the surrounding settlements?" Padme asked, tallying the rough estimate of survivors. Just looking at the minute number made her ill. A quarter of a million people still drew breath. A sparse fraction of the original census count of 2,000,000.

"Some one hundred and forty-four speeder trucks of various sizes, three dozen cargo craft, twenty creature-drawn carts, and a smattering of four-seater transports, Senator." A young dark-skinned Officer with a jagged scar down his cheek answered from his comm terminal next to her. He turned to her, a grave expression on his face. "All told, we can only transport just over two thousand personnel. Maybe twenty-five hundred at best."

Padme's breath hitched. her nails dug into the wooden box her terminal was balanced on.

2,500. That was it. Out of the 250,000 souls clinging for dear life within Theed's city walls she had to choose just 2,500 of those that would have a chance at escape. She curled in on herself as agony clawed up her chest and seized her lungs.

_Oh Ani. Where are you?_

A guttural adrenaline-fueled shout from a female officer wrenched Padme from her devastated and dire realizations. The female Officer was out of her seat with her headset crushed against her ear and she shouted into the receiver then turned around and yelled, "Director Panaka! we got a caravan of civilians in-bound from the south-west! Sir, The Nabarrie House is with them!"

Padme's head whipped around so fast her messy bun bounced off of her ear. She made eye-contact with the female officer who blanched upon recognizing the Senator.

"How many vehicles?" Panaka noticed Padme's desperate expression from across the room, but even a Nabooian Noble house was not worth sacrificing his men for. Even if he had once served them as a bodyguard, confidant and friend, even though it tore at his soul to do so. Padme bit back the angry retort that bucked up her throat as tears stung her eyes. She knew duty and service to the people came first. It was her House and family motto after all.

The female officer glanced at Padme's anguished expression and swallowed before answering, "Some thirty speeders of various sizes with two hundred civilians and eighteen guards with four flash speeder escorts."

Hearing the numbers Panaka let out a tiny breath, thankful he didn't have to make the choice to ignore Nabarrie's plight. "Redirect Flash Squadrons 11, 14, and 23 from the wall and escort the convoy behind the battle-line! Hurry!"

Padme hiccupped in relief as the comms officers scrambled to follow the director's orders. She allowed herself a moment to wallow in her mixed and confused emotions before cramming them down to a dark corner of her heart to deal with later and schooling her face into a hard mask.

Grabbing a headset from a nearby console Padme kept one ear on the status of the convoy while she worked frantically with several of the other officers to plan for the eventual evacuation plan- and both were facing problems.

"Flash 11-2, watch your flank! Supers have rockets!"

"I see 'em, I see 'em! What the kriff! The blaster cannon's hittin' them but they're just not goin' down!"

"Forget scrapping them, just get those civvies outta here! Flash 14-Leader, help us out!"

"We got our own proble- TANK! -Gaugh! -ZzzZzzz-"

"14-Leader is down! 14-Leader is down! AAT's firing from the treeline! Fire back! Fire back god dammit!"

Super battle droids coming outta the- What the hell?! These things can FLY?! No one said they can fly!"

"Flash 23, this is Guard Squad Alpha-18 on the east flank wall. We can provide covering fire with stationary cannons. Just get those people inside!"

"Roger that Alpha-18. Approaching the gates now! Everyone inside! Now! Go, go, go!"

Even surrounded by several layers of thick stone wall and reinforced armor plating Padme could hear and feel the rapid canter of several blaster cannons firing all at once, slagging the enemy and melting through the charging droid ranks.

The moment she heard the rumble of speeders sweeping through the gate and behind Theed's outer walls Padme practically threw her headset off and scrambled for the door, Startling poor Typho and forcing her hapless bodyguard to chase after her.

The guards outside the door jumped as their well-known Senator limped out of the door as fast as her wounded leg would allow towards a nearby clearing. A few of the surviving Guard Flash Squadrons sped by, sporting smoking blaster holes and wounded drivers and behind them a line of the other surviving civilian speeders steered into the clearing hop-shod, their drivers beyond caring now that they were safe. around her shaken passengers tumbling out on quaking legs, still shell-shocked from their desperate flight from their homes and many collapsing and crying in relief.

Padme only had eyes for a familiar polished silverite plated luxury speeder marred by blaster-scoring near the rear of the collection of vehicles. her anxiety ramped up when no-one appeared. She rushed over faster, dodging around a couple kneeling on the ground, embracing each other, fearing that someone inside her family's speeder had been struck by a lucky blaster-bolt.

Then the passenger side door peeled up and Padme was nearly knocked off her feet by her father's embrace.

"Oh, my child! Thank the stars you're okay!"

Padme found herself choked up, her only coherent answer was wrapping her arms around Ruwee Naberrie and squeezed him with all her might, burying her head in her father's chest. The older man wheezed then chuckled and held his most troublesome daughter close. Behind him his wife, Jobal slid spryly from the speeder and threw herself at them both causing Padme's stony facade to crumble completely.

A voice in the back of her mind Padme noted how ridiculous she was being. before marrying Anakin she had never been _this _emotional. The rest of her told that voice to take a hike as she just basked in the relief and her parents' love.

Sola, her older sister and her husband Darred emerged from the speeder as well, her daughter cradling her younger daughter Pooja against her chest with Ryoo, her eldest, fisting the hem of her father's shirt.

"Hey little sis." Sola greeted dryly. "I see city life is really treating you well. Violence seems on the downward trend, yeah?"

Padme dragged her head from the warmth of her father's chest and leveled an unamused stare at her older sister's tasteless joke. "Really Sola? I mean really?"

"Oh don't be such a stick in the mud Paddy." Her sister cortled. "Dark humor is the only way I'm going to get through this with all my marbles. I don't know why you give me so much grief. Your Ani is like, way worse than me! Where is your fearless Jedi knight in baggy pilot leathers anyway?"

Padme tried to answer but the words stuck in her throat, and Sola's smarmy attitude gave way to shocked disbelief. "No. Oh Padme… I'm so sor-"

Padme closed her eyes as tears of worry burned at her nose and she shook her head." N-no Sola. He's not… I mean he's… I-I just don't know…"

"Honey, you're bleeding!" Jobal Naberrie gasped, completely oblivious to her daughters' exchange as she pulled at her youngest's clothes and felt the grimy dried crimson stained in her borrowed body armor and clothes.

"I-It's okay Mama," Padme sniffled, wiped her runny nose and patted her chest. "I only got a few stitches in my leg from some shrapnel. most of it isn't mine."

"That's not the problem!" Jobal nearly screeched.

Padme's brows drew down and she opened her mouth to reply when thankfully Typho jumped in for the rescue.

"Madam Naberrie, perhaps we can have this conversation inside the command center, where it's safest?" The bodyguard gestured towards the bunker, his blaster pistol held aloft in his other hand.

Jobal coughed and looked around at the other spectators audience to her hysterical outburst. "Yes. Of course."

Typho smiled, relieved that for once a Naberrie was actually taking his advice. "Wonderful, right this way-"

"MTT! Take cover!"

Padme whipped her head around towards where the shout came from as a vibrant red turbolaser bolt tore through a section of wall and blasted a part of the perimeter into dust and stony shrapnel. She grunted in pain and surprise when a well-muscled mass bowled her and her parents over onto the ground as another section of reinforced wall imploded, peppering the parked convoy with speeding shards and rock. Captain Typho untangled himself from his charge and knelt by the fallen senator as she regained her bearings and coughed from the dust left in the explosion's wake.

Just above the ringing in her ears and thump of blaster fire, Padme could hear her nieces' wails of terror.

"We need to get inside the command center NOW! Someone, get these civilians out of here!" The bodyguard hauled her and her parents to their feet and through the throng of panicked civilians, her sister and her family hot on their heels with Ryoo and Pooja screaming all the while. Many of the speeders revved back to life and sped away as Typho pushed past the command center's guards as they scrambled to defend against the imminent assault.

Tumbling into the bunker as it trembled from another barrage from the MTT's siege guns Padme hauled a fallen comms officer that was knocked to floor and shook the dazed woman like a maraca, "Is there still no word from the Republic?!"

"I-I-I-!" The officer was in shock, eyes rolling into the back of her head in fright.

Padme dropped the comatose woman back to the floor and leapt into the comm terminal, beating away on the interface, hoping to find some communique or stray transmission, or _Something _besides bloody static!

While Padme worked furiously on the terminal Typho shoved the Naberrie family against the far wall, with the children furthest back, their grandparents kneeling at the forefront shielding their daughter and her family.

Director Panaka drew himself to his feet coughing from where he had been thrown by the MTT's first impact and began spitting orders non-stop, scrambling guard platoons and squads to attempt to push back the MTT's relentless advance. He noticed the Naberrie clan and Padme but chose to ignore them.

The entire time the MTT's booming siege cannons grew louder and louder.

Another shot impacted the command center's exterior, drawing a paired scream from the little girls and dust and stone down from the ceiling.

Another shot struck, and another, and another, and another.

Padme barely noticed the wall finally give in time, crumbling stone and steel hurtling down towards her. On the edge of her hearing she recognised her Father and sister screaming her name. Time seemed to slow, and yet the tumbling debris seemed to move far too fast, as if she were moving through molasses. She kicked the comm terminal away and in achingly slow motion pulled the shell-shocked officer from the floor.

And time sped up, the wall smashed into the floor, broken stone crushing the comm terminal and the space Padme and the other woman had occupied a breath before.

Typho was at her side in an instant, helping his charge pull the unconscious officer by her other arm behind the stone wall for cover. When they set the woman down Padme kicked something soft, and held back a gasp at seeing a bloodied arm of an unlucky guard protruding from beneath the debris.

A cloud of dust kicked up by the collapsed wall swept around Padme and Typho, forcing both to cover their mouths. Padme squinted against the sunlight pouring in through the gaping hole in the wall and coughed. stray crimson lasers whipped through the opening and smacked into the opposite wall.

"To the top of the wall!" Director Panaka and a squad of royal guards and officers picked themselves up from the floor and charged the opening, sporting blasters spitting green plasma back at the advancing horde of droids.

Padme turned towards her little nieces' squeals of fear from the blaster fire and made eye contact with her mother and pointed to the side entrance. "Go! Get to the speeder and make for the palace!"

"Not without you!" Jobal spat. Padme's own eyes hardened to match her mother's steely gaze.

"I'm needed here! You and Solas' family are not! I said, kriffing go!" She shouted back.

Jobal's face twisted in anger but her husband grabbed her shoulders and actually picked his wife up by her waist and threw her over his shoulder. "Ruwee?! Ruwee! Put me DOWN! You kriffing bastard, put me down! That's my baby!"

"Sorry my darling, but that's not going to happen." He grunted from a pair of clenched fists beat his back and glanced up at his younger daughter with an expression she couldn't quite decipher. "You better come back to us."

Padme's throat constricted. she could only nod numbly as her father carried her mother as she thrashed on his shoulder. "Ruwee! When this is all over you're sleeping on the couch for the rest of your bleeding life! You hear me?! Life!"

Solas followed close behind with a bawling dust covered Pooja against her chest. She mouthed 'stay safe' as she passed, her husband and Ryoo in tow.

Padme cast her fleeing family one last longing glance then turned and began to climb the pile of rubble and twisted durasteel leading up to the collapsed opening. She and Captain Typho dropped as a rainstorm of crimson lasers poured over their position. She ignored the rock digging into her stomach and arms as she crawled towards Director Panaka taking cover behind a protruding durasteel plate twisted from when the wall fell.

"Director! I think we need to start thinking of our exit strategy!" She yelled over the cacophony of battle.

The dark skinned man took a few more pot shots at a cluster of B-1's nearby then squinted at her, the wrinkles beginning to form around his eyes deepening.

"Senator, this is our exit strategy."

Padme sighed in resignation as he turned and plugged two B-1's with rapid shots from his S-5 and slid into a sitting position against the durasteel plate, his eyes boring into her. "I have a team of Guards rounding up as many survivors as they can find to lead them through the Palace's escape tunnels while we buy them the time they need. You should go."

"I think not." Padme smirked at the open and familiar look of frustration on her former bodyguard's face. "Quarsh, you should know by now that I find face-to-face negotiation more my style."

Panaka's frown deepened, then he slumped with a resigned sigh. "Fine." he reached next to him and tugged a light sporting blaster rifle from under a poor guardsman's cooling corpse and tossed it to her. She caught the requisitioned weapon, but she was no longer smiling. "Don't die, Milady."

"You either." Padme replied, hefting the Webley repeater and finding another spot to prop up for the firefight.

Typho threw down on the rubble next to her and peeked over the boulder she found for cover. "That doesn't look good."

Padme checked her new blaster's charge pack and took a look towards the advancing foe. A smoldering trail of decimated rubble led to the feet of a massive boxy hovering dreadnought with twin ball siege turbolasers trained on their position. An MTT. Padme frowned. "It looks ray shielded. With all of our fire power we didn't even scratch it-"

The screech of fighter engines echoed overhead. A lone N-1 cut a turn and dove towards the breached wall, cannons blazing. The salvo churned earth and slammed into the MTT, lighting up its shield in hues of green. Somewhere on her left a Guard whooped in excitement.

The brief feeling of elation fled when the yellow fighter suddenly exploded from an AAT cannonshot. Slag and fire raining down across the battlefield as the chunk of metal smashed into the mud and carved a trench into the ground, and the MTT emerged from the attack unscathed.

Padme felt like throwing her blaster in frustration, which quickly turned to panic as the MTT's siege guns lit up her section of rubble, throwing rock and shrapnel into the air. Padme and Typho ducked and pressed themselves against the boulder and the rumble of the MTT's repulsorlift engine began to shake the ground as it drew closer.

Then the rumbling stopped and Padme chanced a glance over her boulder and blanched. The front bulb unlocked with a thud and slid forward, exposing racks and racks of fresh B-1 battle droids.

Padme threw her blaster against her shoulder and began firing. "They're off-loading droids! Shoot them! Shoot them!"

Her cries roused the guards and all around her blaster fire joined hers as they desperately smoked down the droids before they could activate. the MTT's cannons answered back in kind, blasting a section of rubble away, throwing a pair of eviscerated guards into the air. Gore and rock rained down around her as the bodies fell back to earth with a wet thud.

Despite their efforts the majority of the B-1's managed to deploy and activate, turning towards the defenders and began their march, backed by the MTT's siege cannons demolishing what remained of their breached barricades.

"This isn't looking good!" Typho shouted over the roar of blasterfire.

"You said that already!" Padme replied. "But you're not wrong!"

"They made it to the barricades!" Director Panaka shouted. "Retreat to secondary positions! Retreat!"

Padme traded looks with Captain Typho and both simultaneously slid down to follow the squad of guards falling back from their firing positions. Padme's breathing grew deafening in her ear as she ran through the destroyed streets of her precious city, her eyes trained on the back of a royal guard in front of her. Fear prickled at her neck like an itch, demanding she look over her shoulder or she would be shot in the back as they fled. Only rigid discipline instilled in her by long training sessions with Typho and Panaka held her composure together and kept her running.

The secondary barricades apparently were nothing more than a bunch of storefronts with the windows kicked out and any sort of metal stacked in front as some form of ramshackle armor. Padme followed Panaka's squad into what used to be her favorite flower shop on the corner of a four-way intersection. She threw herself underneath the brick window sill, her chest heaving as she sucked in air and ignored the stinging pain radiating from her wounded leg.

To her left and right the remnants of the Royal Guard hit the barricades beside her, sweaty hands shaking from adrenaline and weapons trained down the street as the thunder of metal boots marching grew deafening in their ears. Padme swallowed, suddenly acutely aware of how dry her throat became, and licked her cracked lips free of a drop of sweat that rolled down her forehead.

The first skeletal figure emerged from an alley. A viridescent bolt lanced from the floor above and swiftly cut the droid down in a shower of sparks and flailing metal limbs. more droids emerged from the alley, then street further down, then they even began to appear from among demolished buildings, stomping in an unfeeling, unstoppable advance like an undead horde.

Laserfire stuttered into the growing flood of droids, cutting down the front-runners, only for the ones behind to trample over their fallen without breaking their stride. Then as one the droid horde leveled their E-5 blasters with a whirring click of actuators and crimson death filled the air and spilled into the fortified flower shop.

Padme didn't even have to really aim to hit a droid with the sheer number of clankers in the street, her only real concern was keeping her head down and pulling the trigger. It was a surreal experience, fighting the droids in her own home city, a place she associated with safety and normalcy. This whole day just seemed..._wrong, _like a bad dream.

The world seemed to drift away until all she felt was the Webley sporting blaster recoil back into her shoulder and her heart thudding painfully against her ribcage. She kept one eye on her charge pack as her hands fumbled with the rapidly heating blaster rifle. When it became too hot to hold she set the hissing barrel on the window sill and kept firing until her charge pack died.

"My blaster's empty!"

"Here!"

Typho dragged an automatic carbine from beneath a smoldering corpse and tossed it to her. She discarded the smoking webley and caught the carbine, raising it to her shoulder.

A crimson bolt whipped from the droid horde. Padme's body jerked and the stench of cooked meat stung her nose. She dropped behind cover and blinked, the stench growing worse as heat and pain blossomed from her shoulder.

"Oh. I've been shot."

She looked down at the charred black canal gouged through her flesh, white bone where her shoulder joint met her socket jutted from the fried meat. She felt... detached at the horrific injury, as if she were looking at someone else's slagged shoulder. Even the pain didn't seem to register right.

"Milady?!" Typho fired twice more at the advancing droids then dropped beside her.

Padme looked up at him with wide eyes and mumbled a bit faintly, "I got shot."

She knew the symptoms of shock, intuitively anyway. She had studied such subjects under the very man who was shielding her from flying debris thrown up by the lasers eating away at their cover. Disassociation, confusion, panic, difficulty focusing. She knew what was happening to her, but it was very much another thing to experience it.

She blinked, fighting the fugue that threatened to take her mind in her delirium. "I'm- I'm fine Captain, keep fighting-"

"You're not fine! I can see the bone!"

"You sound like my mother." Padme sputtered. She pushed him away, until a laser bolt zipped just past his head and they both wisely ducked back down. Hot agony flared from her slagged shoulder, overcoming the numbing effects of adrenaline as spots filled her vision. She swallowed and managed to bite out, "Keep fighting. The droids will overwhelm us otherwise."

As she spoke the ground began to tremble again, and far in the distance she heard a building collapse. The MTT was getting closer, it's repulsorlift engines deafening as it tore through the rubble like wet tissue.

Padme managed to catch one horrified glimpse at the huge warmachine right before its siege cannon barked and the entire second floor exploded. She and Typho huddled behind cover as an entire section of the flower shop crumbled down around them. Through the din of combat the screams of dying men rose from the debris, screams that were swiftly and brutally silenced as laser fire poured in on their position.

The march of droid feet and the MTT's engines all but drowned out but her own ragged breathing. With a shuddering intake of breath on the cusp of a sob she closed her eyes at the world around her shook from the metal foot-beat of a thousand death machines-

-and at the every edge of her hearing, just above the ominous clammer, an odd whistling sound.

One that was quickly growing louder.

Padme gasped, her eyes flying open in abject disbelief as the whistling turned to a shrieking howl and the Proton Bombs took the MTT broadside, popping the behemoth open like a bullet through an apple. The siege transport sent up in an ear splitting explosion that threw fire and shrapnel across the decimated city street, scattering the droids congesting the urban battlefield as if they were leaves in gale.

The wounded senator twisted up to watch as a Squadron of Y-Wings howled passed and even the fiery pain from her blaster wound did nothing to damper the massive grin on her face

"IT'S THE REPUBLIC!" Her message got through!

[Sorry I'm late.] A refined and distinctly smug voice crackled from her personal wrist-comm. [ I seemed to have received my invitation only after the party began.]

Padme hiccuped and wiped the mess of mud, tears, and blood from her cheek as she replied. "No. No, Master Kenobi. You're right on time."

A blaster bolt slammed into the brick just inches from her head and she cleared her throat. "Though I would appreciate it if you would hurry up and greet our unwanted guests."

Obi-Wan Kenobi's cultured chuckle warmed the private Comm-Channel. [Oh, I intend to, Senator. Do keep your heads down.]

"Heads down?" Padme parroted.

Her question was answered when the droid filled street veritably detonated, missiles impacting in an accurate carpet barrage, the shockwaves punching Padme in the throat and rattling her chest, even from behind cover.

The Y-Wings responsible for the second bombing run arced across the sky as a wing of the brand new ARC-170 Starfighters following in escort, rear gunners firing a spread of lasers and swatting down a few stray Vulture Droids like insistent pests.

The roar of LAATi gunship engines rumbled through the ringing in her ears and Padme watched as an AT-TE dropped from its transport and slammed onto the intersection, the street cracking beneath its feet from the impact. More LAATi's swept in from the sky this time off-loading hundreds of clone troopers marked in the yellow visage of the 212st; their DC-15A Blaster rifles flaring hot blue plasma fire before their boots even hit the ground, cutting down the remaining droids with lethal accuracy.

One gunship set down a few yards in front of the decimated flower shop, its doors opening to reveal a squad of clone medics and-

"Obi-Wan?" hearing his voice over the comm-channel was one thing, but she was completely unprepared for the rush of emotions at seeing the brazen Jedi Master. Padme's knees shook as she tried and failed to rise from behind her cover to greet her friend. It was only Typho catching her under her wounded arm that kept her from collapsing.

Obi-Wan's confident grin slid off his face like oil at the horrid state he saw her in. He snatched a nearby medic by the arm. "Help the Senator!"

"Yes sir!" The clone dutifully scrambled over the building's remains and with Typho's help lifted her over the rubble and set her against the barricade. She was too tired to bother feinting her wince when the medic injected a combat stabilizer into her neck and sprayed her sheared shoulder with a thick bacta gel.

Obi-Wan wanted to help her first but sensed a fading life flickering beneath the collapse portion of the shop. With a breath to sink into a puseo-mediation and an exertion of will he lifted the brick and steel up and away revealing a bleeding and broken dark-skinned man.

"Uncle!" In a rare breach of decorum Typho joined another pair of clones and dragged Director Panaka's unconscious form from the debris.

A knot of shock and dismay lodged itself in Padme's throat at the limp body of her family friend and former bodyguard as Panaka was loaded onto a gurney and rushed off to a Medical LAAT gunship set down behind the AT-TE standing vigil next to the MTT's fiery remains.

Obi-Wan sat down with his back against the barricade next to her , breaking her wide-eyed stare away from Panaka's limp form. She recognised a familiar weariness on his shoulders that she could relate to. He hadn't spoken yet, just sitting next to her, providing a supportive presence while she collected herself.

She watched the Jedi Master out of the corner of her eye to distract from the unpleasant stinging from the medic working on her wounds. He was coming to terms with the carnage around him. Broken homes, crushed businesses, smoldering bodies, and a destroyed city he had once saved ten years ago.

He had been an apprentice then, when he still had Master Qui-Gon to guide him and ease his turmoiled mind. Now Naboo is under attack again, and this time he was the Jedi Master, and they were far too late.

"I'm… sorry, Padme." He whispered. They shared a long look, an anguished understanding passed between them. Her gaze fell and she gave a small nod. Closing her eyes for a moment she inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"We… We managed to hold them long enough to gather the survivors at the Royal Palace." She began. "My family is there. The Nabarrie Clan is respected as one of the leading Houses on Naboo, so my Mother and Father would be in charge of their safety."

Obi-Wan nodded. "Good. We couldn't land near the Palace with the shields still in place, so I'll brief Commander Cody to approach on foot and assist with the evacuation."

"We are still evacuating?" Padme asked, then hissed in pain as the Medic pressed a clean bandage over her blasted shoulder. She waved off the clone's apology and added, "Why would we? You're here now."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "As much as I would love to hold the city like last time, we are vastly outnumbered and outgunned, your forces are crippled. If we were to fortify this place it would be a juicy target for bombers, artillery or an orbital bombardment."

"What about your fleet in orbit? What about more reinforcements from the Republic?"

Obi-Wan scrubbed his face with a gloved hand and sighed. When he looked at her it seemed as if he had suddenly aged ten years. "My fleet is stretched too thin, fighting off the invading CIS cruisers I can't guarantee the city's safety from space. I also requested support from the Jedi Council but for the moment there are no other available units anywhere close to the Naboo system."

He dragged his fingers through his hair and breathed out, bleeding his anxiety out into the Force, before continuing, "The closest is Master Luminara or possibly Master Windu on Ryloth. Both could still take weeks at minimum for them to prepare a sufficient force to push these invaders back."

Padme blinked, digesting the dire news. Her eyebrows drew down in confusion. "I thought you had another with you. A Master Krell?"

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, his mouth a thin line. "He brought his fleet to the other side of the planet to engage the enemy armada at the Low Orbital Defense Array 13 over Fort Mickeal Research Center." He clicked his wrist-comm, checking for messages, even though he knew he wouldn't find anything then added, "He hasn't reported in since. No one has."

"Fort Mickeal?" Padme felt faint. "A-are you sure?"

"Yes. I've had my comm officers monitoring every channel we can pick up since the fleet went dark-" The deep, primal distress that rolled off the Senator in waves rocked Obi-Wan as if he had been knocked in the nose. A sickening dread roiled in the pit of his stomach. _No. I couldn't be… _

"Padme? Where's Anakin?"

* * *

A/N: Aaaand we're back with another episode of Push Me Away! I hope this chapter will make up for the loooong wait.

Shout out to Rajo for beta reading this piece. you're awesome dude!


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